Thread by @Sydonahi

Guess what!? It's ASTRO TIME! 🤩

Yesterday I went star-gazing in Tekapo, a dark sky reserve, so let's talk about it!

And before you ask: YES, I TOOK THIS PICTURE WITH MY PHONE 😱
We'll talk about that too, don't worry😉

Are you ready for science? 🤩

#astronomy #science
1/15

First of all, let's talk about the Milky Way, the big bright band in the sky: it's the disk of our galaxy that we see from the INSIDE! But what are these clouds there?

These are molecular clouds: the coldest, densest nebulae. So dense they obscure everything behind them!

2/15

But in the southern hemisphere, the Milky Way isn't the only galaxy you can see with the naked eye 👁️👁️

Look at the bottom right on this pic, see the fuzzy white blobs?

Let me present to you:
▶️ The Small Magellanic Cloud
🔽 The Large Magellanic Cloud

3/15

The Large Magellanic Cloud in particular is very special! It contains the 30 doradus, the largest HII region (understand very young and bright star forming region), we know close to home.

It contains nearly 1000 massive stars! 😱

4/15

🌌: TRAPPIST/E. Jehin/ESO

But that's not all! In 1987, 30 Dor hosted a supernova so bright you could see it by eye in the night sky!

SN 1987A would go on to be the most well studied supernovae and an absolute legend 👌

5/15

💥: ESA

But the Milky Way and the Magellanic clouds aren't the only things I saw... Can you spot it?

It's Orion! It's head is upside down and the large exposure time drowns it in other stars...

Let me help you....

6/15

With some connecting lines it might be easier to spot 👌

Also, a lower exposure time will help the stars in Orion stand out! That's because the other ones are fainter and just won't show up 😁

It's always weird for me to see him upside down:

Hi @IsBetelgeuseOK! 👋

7/15

Unfortunately, constellations and galaxies isn't everything I saw. We got #starlinked quite badly at the beginning of the night.

Also, if you wonder why my stralink lines are closer together than on @SuperASASSN pics, it's just because my phone has a massive field of view!

8/15

Speaking of which, how in the hell did I take these pictures with a SMARTPHONE?

Two things:
1) The "Pro" feature on my @Huawei P30 Pro.
2) I guess being an observational astronomer comes in handy at times.

Let me help you:

9/14

The Pro feature in my camera allows me to set the ISO and the exposure time. This is crucial.

A high ISO means more light sensitivity (but too high and your pics will get noisy).

As for the exposure time, mine varied from 6 seconds to 30 seconds (the highest it could go)

10/14

Now, if you're going to take pictures with an exposure times of the order of seconds YOU CANNOT HOLD YOUR PHONE. I don't care if you have a steady hand, it'll be blurry.

I don't have a tripod, soI just propped mine up with rocks and my scarf.

Another trick about that...

11/14

Set a timer of like 5 or 10 seconds. This way you have some time to carefully place your phone at the angle you want 😉.

Be careful to the focus. With mine I picked the brightest star and clicked on it and it was enough. If you don't mine the focus... Well...

12/15

I actually found it really cool to see this effect: notice how the stars turn into doughnuts?

That's not the electronics this is really what happens when a point source is out of focus. The light is concentrated on an annulus instead of a point. Same happens at telescopes!

13/

Anyway, I've rambled on for long enough I think.

The last thing I'll note is that Dark Sky reserves are dark... Except when you pic the spot everyone else goes too, and you have to dodge flash lights 😅

I had an amazing night and I really hope you enjoyed this ride! 💖🙏

14/15

If you're gonna take pictures of the night sky, be patient, play around with the settings it can take time to find what works!

For better pics of the night sky, check out:
@DavidBflower @SpaceGeck

For passionate space threads: @_Astro_Nerd_ @starstrickenSF @CA_AstroComm

15/15