Rüdiger Nitsch 🐧

Wednesday, 16 September 2026, and the Sun 🌞 is spending its last full day in Leo before crossing into Virgo constellation early tomorrow. I caught it at 07:48, barely 7° above the horizon, and a properly filtered telescope shows only two numbered sunspot groups today, AR4527 and AR4528, the two dark specks near the rim here, each one bigger than Earth. Both are riding the Sun's rotation toward the edge, so don't wait: AR4527 should be gone by tomorrow, AR4528 by Friday. AR4528 isn't leaving quietly, though, because a filament erupted near it a few days ago and the plasma cloud it threw out could give Earth a glancing blow tomorrow, possibly with a minor (G1) geomagnetic storm and auroras at high latitudes. ⛔️ Never point a telescope, binoculars or a camera lens at the Sun without a certified solar filter fitted securely over the front. Sunglasses won't protect you, and neither will old screw-in eyepiece filters. Through optics the damage takes a split second and can be permanent. 📷 Handheld, Sony A7RV, Sony 70-200mm f/4 with Sony 2x FE teleconverter (400mm), Baader AstroSolar filter, 1/1000s at f/9.5, ISO 320. #solarphotography

A Big Picture. One frame in Pegasus: NGC 7331 with its new supernova SN 2026aaiv and, far behind at roughly 290 million light-years, the tight knot of Stephan's Quintet. Anyone 👽 watching from there is still about 210 million years (!) short of this flash, the time since the Triassic ended 🦖🦕, while we got it for the price of one clear night and a bit of patience. Yet the big picture is a good hiding place: a distant star, a white dwarf destroyed in a runaway thermonuclear explosion, detonated some 45 million years before our "now" appears as a faint grain beside the core, unnoticed unless you pay attention. CS /px 16.9.2026 #Supernova -- xipteras.com/Astronomy/Super…