The supernova SN 2023ixf in the galaxy M101 / NGC 5457 was discovered by the Japanese star enthusiast Koichi Itagaki on May 19, 2023, when it was discovered, its brightness was mag 14.9. It is the brightest supernova in a long time, so I had to try to photograph it despite the bright summer nights in Finland. In this image exposed with the R filter at 15x30s, the supernova is clearly visible in the spiral arm of the M101 galaxy. Astrometrically measured brightnesses and location 2023-05-23 21:56UT: R mag 11.5 Clear mag 11.2 J2000: RA 14 03 38.57 Decl. +54 18 42.2

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JUICE, ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, and its launch vehicle are already 1.1 million km away in this 20x90s exposure animation taken over 30 minutes. It's already foggy, but it's still visible. In the lower part of the image, the dim asteroid (38004) 1998 KJ47 is also moving in the middle stages. Measured astrometric luminosities and positions 2023-04-18 21:13:51UT: JUICE: C2023 04 18.88463 12 17 38.50 -03 14 00.9 17.1 V JUICE Booster: C2023 04 18.88463 12 15 43.68 -03 16 14.8 18.0 V Asteroid (38004) 1998 KJ47: C2023 04 18.88463 12 16 33.12 -03 24 56.6 17.6 18.4 V

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C/2019 U5 (PanSTARRS) is visible in the southern sky after dark, quite low already at an altitude of 27 degrees. The tail in this Clear filter 15x60s image shows 9 arc minutes in the direction PA 40deg, Coma diameter 1.5', brightness mag 12.0. Our starry sky is already full of all kinds of space debris, even in this image about the diameter of the moon, seven satellite streaks appeared during a 15-minute exposure.

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NGC4565 Needle Galaxy pictured here from Viestikalli a little over a week ago during the last dark nights of spring. Exposure with LRGB filters ~4x1h, 0.3m/F4 Newton. As a bonus, the image shows the faint quasar QSO B1233+262, brightness V 20.84 mag, redshift z ~2.09, so the distance to it is about 11.2 billion light years. It's worth holding on to your chair and wearing your seat belts tight to avoid a sudden stop because we're moving away from each other at a speed of 243,000 km/s.

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The NEO asteroid 2023 GG is currently passing Earth at a distance of about four Moons. 2023 GG is a murika with a diameter of about 100 meters. Here its fast movement is shown in a 47x15s animation during about 15 minutes when it passed through the camera's field of view, i.e. just under the diameter of the moon. The brightness measured through the G/V filter was 16.04 mag. Astrometric measured position 2023-04-10_202700UT = 09h 03' 17.04", +21° 53' 03.1". The single image has one 60-second exposure, during which 2023 GG drew a dim Viiru of about 85 arcseconds in the image. A few g...

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Comet C/2019 U5 (PanSTARRS) is in the southern sky in the evening after dark at an altitude of just under 30 degrees. The comet is quite far from Earth at 2.69au and therefore appears to be moving slowly. The diameter of the coma measured from an image exposed for 7 minutes is 1' corresponding to 60 tkm and the length of the tail 7' corresponding to 420 tkm, PA 48°. Total magnitude at ASTAP 12.4 mag.

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364P/PanSTARRS is a small comet currently about 1 AU from the Sun and very close to Earth at 0.14AU / 21 million km. Because of its proximity, the comet moves very quickly and even with short 45s exposures you had to follow the comet. The comet has a dense very small 40" / 4,000 km diameter coma and an easily distinguishable narrow 8' / 50,000 km long tail. The image of the cyan filter (CN 387nm) shows almost no CN emission with 364P/PanSTARRS. Often, comets have already formed a large CN coma at a distance of 1 AU from the sun, but this comet does not have it for some reason. Image 1) Cle...

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364P/PanSTARRS is a small comet currently about 1 AU from the Sun and very close to Earth at 0.14AU / 21 million km. Because of its proximity, the comet moves very quickly and even with short 45s exposures you had to follow the comet. The comet has a dense very small 40" / 4,000 km diameter coma and an easily distinguishable narrow 8' / 50,000 km long tail. The image of the cyan filter (CN 387nm) shows almost no CN emission with 364P/PanSTARRS. Often, comets have already formed a large CN coma at a distance of 1 AU from the sun, but this comet does not have it for some reason. Image 1) Cle...

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Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is still a very faint mag 18 object more than 7 AU from the Sun. It is predicted to brighten up to a 0 mag object visible to the naked eye in October 2024. Despite the dimness, I still had to photograph it when it happened to be at an altitude of about 30 degrees in the southern sky at dawn. Figure 1) 5*90s, astrometrically measured position and brightness: 2023-03-16_0123UT Position 15h17m35.7s, -00°21'26" Magn (V) 18.2 Figure 2) Exposure 20*90s=30min, 2023-03-16_0135UT, stacked according to comet

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Comet C/2022 E3 still has a long ion tail in addition to the dust tail. Attached is a panoramic image where the ion tail is visible one degree in the direction PA 73°. Image 1) Clear filter, panorama 4x5x30s, 2023-02-11_2044UT Picture 2) Clear filter, inverted, 5x60s, 2023-02-11_1913UT Animation 3) Narrowband UV 387nm cyan filter image animation 4x5x3min 2023-02-11_1922UT. The width of the image area at the comet's distance is 694,000 km. The ion tail also emits here in the UV band 380nm-394nm. The ion emission line visible in this UV region has not yet been identified.

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Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is quite close to Earth at 0.48au / 72 million km, and the comet is beginning to fill the cell of the longer focal length imaging equipment. Attached is a plate-corrected image where the size of the image field is 36'x28', corresponding to an image field of 750,000 km X 590,000 km at the comet's distance, the grid spacing in the direction of RA and Dec is approximately 210,000 km. Picture 1) Clear filter, 4x1min=4 minute exposure. A broad particle tail and two ion tails going in slightly different PA directions stand out. The ion tail in the direction of PA 30...

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Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) imaged with LRGB filters (Figure 1) with 4x10x1min exposures (2023-01-02_03:30UT) and in the second (Figure 2) mv mosaic image through the Clear filter with 10x1min exposures. The exposures are stacked according to the stars, registered when the comet is still moving that slowly, so in that sense this is a "correct" image. When you try to bring out the colors in the hair and tails, it goes a bit towards caramel saturation. The stringy ion tail stands out to the edge of the image by a degree, green comma 12'. A wide fan-like dust tail is in the direction of 0deg. Figur...

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Comet C/2022 A2 (PanSTARRS) pictured here in better conditions than in my previous night's "cloud pictures". An ion tail stands out up to the edge of the image more than half a degree in the direction PA 315deg, and a faint curved fan-like particle tail 13' in the direction PA 290-300deg. Exposure 14x2min from 2023-01-02 02:50UT. In the second picture, the star streaks have been reduced when stacking to separate the tails. This C/2022 A2 (PanSTARRS) has clearly caught up with C/2022 E3 (ZTF) in its final phase, and will be a good second :-)

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Comet C/2022 A2 (PanSTARRS) has brightened nicely, here is a 5x2min exposure stacked according to the nucleus. Unfortunately, the upper clouds started to thicken immediately after the first exposure 2023-01-01 03:21UT, which appears in the image as fading stars. A surprisingly long forked tail can be seen 23' in the direction PA 315deg. Coma diameter 5'.

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A positive observation of the recurrent nova M31N 2008-12a in the galaxy M31. Image 1) 2022-12-02 18:38 UT 13x120s+5x60s Picture 2) 2022-12-02 19:04 UT 4x120s. The limit magnitude in figure 1 is 19.1. Nova appears very faint at the marker. Also observed in Tenerife: Recurrent Nova M31N 2008-12a: Discovery of the 2022 eruption with the Las Cumbres Observatory global Telescope network

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Negative observation of the recurring nova of galaxy M31 M31N 2008-12a, image time 2022-11-13 16:22 UT, exposure time 20x80s. Limit magnitude 19.4.

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Comet 17P/Holmes had the most massive known comet outburst in 2007 October and its particle remnants are now orbiting the Sun. Different size ejected particles have formulated an hourglass pattern orbits, and the dust trail is brightest at the center of the pattern. Orekit "Dust Trail Kit -model" was created to model and calculate positions of the dust trail particles, which is described in this scientific publication Evolution of the dust trail of comet 17P/Holmes . Here is observation of this extremely dim dust trail taken 30/31.10.2022. Two separate three hour exposures were taken during th...

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After all, this newly named asteroid had to be described as (6073) 1939 UB The Star Society here cools its orbit. In the low shallow southern sky in the constellation of Libra, it still stands out at dawn in the morning. During the hour-long exposure, it moved for about an arc of minutes and stands out as a streak in the pint image and a clear motion in the 60x60s animation.

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The JWST James Webb Space Telescope is currently stationary at the L2 point, aligning its mirrors, and its apparent motion relative to the stars is distinguished in this animation exposed for 30x90s = 45 minutes. The apparent motion of the JWST with respect to the stars is mainly due to the annual orbit of the Earth (= observer) L2 point in its orbit around the sun, the daily rotation of the Earth (= observer) and the motion of the JWST around the L2 point. The brightness measured from the JWST image is mag 15.86. It is clearly, up to 1.5 magnitude brighter than the January observations. The a...

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The comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko is still visible with a nice long tail. In this bright 72% lunar light, the comet was captured with 15 minutes of exposure with a Clear filter. The inverted image no longer distinguishes the dust trail / dust trail seen in front of the comet in previous observations. Pictured in the lower left corner is the galaxy PGC 23643 mag15.81.

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