Just over two weeks after the total solar eclipse of August 12, 2026, eclipse season will deliver a second act. On the night of August 27-28, a very deep partial lunar eclipse will see Earth's shadow cover more than 96% of the moon's visible surface. Although it falls just short of totality — and a so-called “blood moon” moment — the eclipse will be deep enough to turn much of the moon a reddish-orange color, creating a spectacle that will look similar to a total lunar eclipse.

For photographers, it will be one of the best opportunities to capture a lunar eclipse for some time. In fact, no deeper lunar eclipse will occur until the total lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve 2028 — and the next one visible in North America, Europe and the UK won’t be until June 25-26, 2029 — making this a rare chance to capture a dramatically darkened moon.

A lunar eclipse is a relaxing affair. Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse requires no special filters, no elaborate safety precautions and no split-second timing. Lunar eclipses are completely safe to view with the naked eye. The event unfolds slowly over several hours, giving photographers plenty of time to experiment, refine their settings and enjoy the experience — though this one arguably comes with a little more jeopardy than others.

Understanding 2026’s partial lunar eclipse

Lunar eclipses can only occur during a full moon — in this case, August’s Sturgeon Moon — when Earth is between the sun and the moon. When the alignment is precise, the full moon passes through Earth’s umbra (the darkest center of its shadow), and sunlight is blocked from reaching the lunar surface; the only light that does reach it is refracted through Earth’s atmosphere. This is totality. As sunlight passes through Earth's atmosphere, shorter blue wavelengths are scattered while longer red wavelengths are bent into Earth's shadow. During a lunar eclipse, the filtered sunlight reaches the moon and drapes its surface in copper, orange and red. It’s the same physics that causes red sunsets and sunrises — but it’s a process that will stop short of being total on August 27-28.

At maximum eclipse, only a thin sliver of the moon will remain outside the umbra. Most of the lunar surface will be darkened and illuminated only by sunlight filtered through Earth's atmosphere. You’ll read that this event is a “blood moon,” but technically that term should be reserved for a total lunar eclipse. Since a small portion of the moon remains outside the umbra throughout the event, Aug. 27-28’s eclipse is officially a partial lunar eclipse, albeit an unusually deep event.

From a photographer's perspective, however, the distinction is mostly academic. Although the human eye may not see much color, to a camera, the moon will appear darkened and reddish, producing images that many observers would struggle to distinguish from those taken during a total lunar eclipse. The only clue will be a tiny sliver of sunlight on the limb of an otherwise dark, reddish moon.

Partial lunar eclipse: understanding the phases

A partial lunar eclipse has two short and one very long phase (times supplied are in Universal Time):

Penumbral lunar eclipse (01:23-02:33 UTC on Aug. 28): when the full moon begins to move through Earth’s penumbral shadow, its fuzzy outer shadow. As it does so, the full moon will dim considerably and lose its glare. It’s an excellent time to simply photograph a full moon.

Partial lunar eclipse (02:33-05:51, with max. eclipse at 04:12 UTC): when the full moon begins to move through Earth’s umbral shadow. The spectacle here is the edge of Earth’s shadow gradually moving across the lunar surface, leaving the covered portion darkened. As the event peaks (maximum), 96% of the lunar surface will be dark, and cameras will pick it up as reddish. The sequence then reverses as the moon moves out of the umbra and back into the penumbra.

Penumbral lunar eclipse (05:51-07:01): simply a repeat of the first phase, as the moon gradually regains its brightness.

Partial lunar eclipse: Europe vs. North America

The official line is that European observers are unlucky because this deep partial lunar eclipse will be lost to moonset in the west. For example, here are the times for London, according to TimeAndDate.com:

London

Penumbral begins: 2:23 a.m. BST on August 28

Partial begins: 3:33 a.m. BST

Maximum: 5:12 a.m. BST

Moonset 6:15 a.m. BST

In Europe, the maximum eclipse comes shortly before dawn, with the moon low in the western sky. That creates opportunities to photograph the darkened moon above city skylines, coastlines, mountains and landmarks while the eastern horizon begins to brighten. For landscape photographers, the combination of an eclipsed moon and dawn twilight may produce more memorable images than a close-up photograph taken through a long telephoto lens.

New York

In North America, the eclipse occurs much earlier, but it depends on where you are. For example, here are the times for New York, which is perfectly placed for a view of the entire eclipse high up in a dark sky, making it ideal for close-up lunar photography.

Penumbral begins: 9:23 p.m. EDT on August 27

Partial begins: 10:33 p.m. EDT

Maximum: 00:12 a.m. EDT on August 28

Partial ends: 01:51 a.m. EDT

Penumbral ends: 03:01 a.m. EDT

Los Angeles

On the West Coast, however, the initial penumbral phase occurs when the full moon is yet to rise, with the partial phase beginning shortly after moonrise. For example, here are the times for Los Angeles:

Penumbral begins: moon below horizon

Moonrise: 7:17 p.m. PDT on August 27

Partial begins: 7:33 p.m. PDT

Maximum: 9:12 p.m. PDT

Partial ends: 10:51 p.m. PDT

Penumbral ends: 00:01 a.m. PDT on August 28

Equipment for lunar eclipse photography

Lunar eclipses are one of the few astronomical events where any type of camera you have can be used:

Wide-angle camera lenses and smartphones: landscapes featuring the eclipsed moon.

70-200mm lens: closer-in on the eclipsed moon in a landscape.

150-600mm lens: detailed shots of the eclipsed moon.

Telescope: close-up shots of the eclipsed moon.

One of the attractions of lunar eclipses is that photographers can approach the event in many different ways. A smartphone is well-suited to capturing the atmosphere of the event, while a wide-angle lens on a mirrorless or DSLR camera will work well in Europe (as it sets in the west at dawn) and on the west coast of North America (as it rises in the east at dusk). Where the eclipse occurs close to a horizon, a foreground is possible. For these shots, a medium telephoto lens in the 70-200mm range should work well. For photographers on the East Coast of North America, the best option is close-ups, using at least a 400mm lens (the bigger, the better!) or a small telescope.

Whatever equipment you choose, a sturdy tripod is a must-have because, as the eclipse reaches its maximum and the moon darkens, you’ll need to use longer exposures.

Camera settings for the partial lunar eclipse

Photographing a lunar eclipse is mostly about adapting to the changing brightness of the lunar surface. For a regular full moon photo, manually focus on the moon using Live View on the camera’s LCD screen, zooming in on the limb of the moon. With that done, the starting manual settings are generally: 1/125 to 1/250 second exposures at ISO 100 and an aperture of around f/8. As the eclipse gets close to its peak, exposures might lengthen to as much as 1/8 second.

During a lunar eclipse, the moon becomes progressively dimmer as it moves through Earth’s shadow. By the time of maximum eclipse, it may be hundreds of times fainter than it was at the start of the night. The solution? Experiment. Expect to adjust settings continuously throughout the event, essentially lengthening shutter speeds as the eclipse develops, with longer exposures allowing the totally eclipsed areas of the lunar surface to look red and shorter ones allowing the partially eclipsed regions to look sharp. Consider combining separate exposures later.

One way to cover your bases is to use automatic exposure bracketing (AEB), which takes multiple exposures at different shutter speeds. The beauty of this tactic is that it helps you get around the problem of extreme dynamic range on the moon, where one portion is brightly lit, and the rest is darkened. Make a plan to combine them later using post-processing software.

Whatever settings you use, always capture in RAW, which will give you so much more data — and so many more options — when processing your images after the eclipse.

An event worth making the effort for

Although it falls just short of becoming a true “blood moon,” the August 27-28 partial lunar eclipse will bring photographers one of the finest lunar photography opportunities until the end of 2028. Whether you’re shooting close-ups from North America or an odd-looking moonset in Europe, Earth’s shadow will put on a memorable show. If the skies are clear, it will be worth making the effort.

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Since its inception in 1958, NASA has arguably played the most important role in furthering our knowledge of Earth, the universe and natural phenomena.

Through its mesmerizing photos captured by spacecraft imaging devices and pioneering astronauts with handheld cameras, the agency has compiled the premier portfolio of pictures that have helped us, as visual creatures, understand our place in the cosmos.

This World Photography Day, take a look at some of the most iconic of these images, delving into why they helped shape our perception of our very existence.

Man on the Moon (1969)

Just 11 years after its founding, NASA achieved what many would say was its biggest triumph: putting a man on the Moon. On July 20 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface, immortalizing the moment with his famous words about taking what was a small step, but a “giant leap for mankind".

And while the very act of a human setting foot on a celestial body that wasn’t Earth lit the fires of possibility that we could, one day, venture further into space, it was the images captured during these moments that truly opened our eyes to the realities of this ambition.

When Neil Armstrong took the shot of Buzz Aldrin meandering across the crater-ridden surface using a modified 70mm Hasselblad 500EL camera, he not only captured the glory of Apollo 11, but a frightening realization of how hostile the universe truly is.

The vast pitch-blackness of deep space behind Aldrin was a stark reminder that, despite the triumphant Moon landing, any journey to more distant destinations would be fraught with peril, regardless of how advanced our technology may ever become.

Blue Marble (1972)

By 1972 NASA was sending its sixth crewed mission, Apollo 17, to the lunar surface. Roughly five hours into the journey of astronauts Eugene A Cernan (commander), Harrison H Schmitt (lunar module pilot) and Ronald E Evans (command module pilot), someone clicked the shutter.

While NASA has always credited the Blue Marble shot to all three crew members, over the years Schmitt has maintained that he was the man behind the camera, using it to document weather patterns.

Whether or not Schmitt did, in fact, capture the frame, the image certainly served the purpose for which he claims it was taken. At a distance of some 18,300 miles from Earth, it clearly displayed Africa, the oceans and the Antarctic ice cap, in what was the first time an Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap.

The image served as one of the early fully-illuminated color views of global cloud systems and continental interactions, helping to inspire holistic, planetary-scale climate models rather than localized weather forecasting.

Pale Blue Dot (1990)

While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin proved to us the dangers of space, the Voyager 1 spacecraft imaged its vastness. In 1990, 23 years after launching, and at an unfathomable distance of 3.7 billion miles from home, the vessel pointed its narrow-angle camera toward the inner Solar System.

At the request of the famous physicist Carl Sagan, who wanted one final photograph of our home world from afar before the onboard imaging system powered down forever, mission control – which initially worried that directly facing the Sun could destroy the camera optics – agreed.

In the frame, Earth appears as nothing more than a speck of light, much like a distant star appears to us from the planet. But the message of the image carried much greater weight than its composition. The scene redefined our perspective of the Solar System, putting before our eyes the absolute vastness of space surrounding our grain of sand in the universe.

Since then, Voyager 1 has continued its journey at a speed of roughly 37,800 miles per hour, becoming the first human-made object to cross the heliosphere and enter interstellar space, now at a distance of nearly 16 billion miles away.

Pillars of Creation (1995/2014)

A little closer to home, and in more recent history, the Hubble Space Telescope captured arguably NASA’s most iconic image: the Pillars of Creation. The famous 1995 frame depicts a trio of giant columns of cool hydrogen gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, some 6,500 to 7,000 light-years from Earth.

These stellar nurseries are composed of dense pockets of gas collapsing under gravity, which ignites nuclear fusion and births new stars. While NASA already had a rigorous understanding of these processes by 1995, the image visualized, in mesmerizing color and clarity, how the cosmic bodies responsible for generating light are born.

Just shy of two decades later, NASA’s newer telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), re-imaged the Pillars of Creation in even higher definition. JWST’s infrared instruments were able to peer through opaque dust that blocked Hubble’s vision, more accurately revealing newly formed stars.

Hubble Extreme Deep Field (2012)

NASA has also used space telescopes to observe newly formed galaxies and, in 2012, looked further back in time than ever before, capturing the Extreme Deep Field (XDF) image with Hubble.

The space agency pointed the telescope at a tiny section of the cosmos within the constellation Fornax, shooting more than 2,000 separate exposures over a period of 10 years.

The final composite image, which comprised roughly 23 days of total exposure time, revealed around 5,500 galaxies, capturing ancient light that traveled over 13 billion years to reach us.

Through Hubble XDF, we got to witness early galaxy assembly taking place when the universe was less than 5% of its current age, shortly after the Big Bang. The composite scene opened a window onto cosmic evolution, helping scientists better trace the timeline of celestial structures like our own Milky Way.

The future of our existential understading

Later this month, NASA will launch Nancy Grace Roman (NGRST), the latest of its space telescopes. Scientists will use its wide-area panoramic surveys as a scout, efficiently finding interesting patches of the universe to feed to Hubble and JWST’s deeper, narrower-field focus for detailed follow-up surveys.

The NGRST represents the next step in NASA’s mission to continue shaping our knowledge of the universe and our understanding of what it is to exist in this mind-boggling expanse. And, by the next World Photography Day, I’m sure the agency will be sharing new iconic images, adding to this ongoing visual lesson.

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One of my favorite astrophotography events peaks every August is the Perseids. This late summer meteor shower is known to create as many as 50 to 100 “shooting stars” an hour, along with an occasional fireball of powerful green light.

Catching a shooting star on camera is a challenge as once you’ve spotted the streak of light, it’s typically too late to catch it on camera. But the Perseids' high frequency of meteors means photographers have much higher odds of catching that streak of light on camera.

I love directing my camera towards the night sky every August in hopes of catching a Perseid – I even managed to get the Northern Lights and a meteor in the same frame this year.

But as much as I love photographing the meteor shower, the Perseids are hardly a local event, seen throughout the northern hemisphere and the northernmost parts of the southern hemisphere.

Looking through Perseid meteor astrophotographs from 2026 has enabled me to view the celestial event beyond more than my own regular favorite stargazing sites. Here are my favorite 2026 Perseid meteor shots from around the world.

While the peak has already passed, there's still time to photograph the Perseids, as the celestial event continues through August 24.

Balkan Mountains, Bulgaria

This shot shows an unusual angle of the Arch of Freedom in Bulgaria – and captures the Milky Way along with several Perseid meteors.

Izmir, Turkey

I love how the glare from the light house nearly matches the streaks of the meteors across the sky.

Dambulla, Sri Lanka

The Sigiriya Rock Fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage Site looks all the more stunning amid the night sky. This shot was taken closer to the start of the Perseids on July 23.

Ankara, Turkey

The structure of the Abaci Fairy Chimneys adds interest to this shot from the peak of the Perseids on August 13.

Ostrava, Czech Republic

The windmill lines up perfectly with the Milky Way in this shot by Lukas Kabon.

Eskisehir, Turkey

Photographer Aytug Can Sencar captured the rock formation, the Mily Way and a Perseid in this dramatic shot.

Shitan Village, China

Clouds are the astrophotographer's worst enemy, but this shot highlights dramatic fog filling in a valley underneath the Perseids. The red streak is likely an aircraft, but there's a nice white meteor streaking right down the line of the Milky Way.

Konya, Turkey

A sunflower field adds interest to this shot that manages to catch the Perseids and the Milky Way.

Joshua Tree, California, USA

The namesake for Joshua Tree National Park creates a striking scene amid the meteor shower in this shot from August 13.

Beijing, China

Most Perseids appear as small streaks of light, but the meteors will occasionally produce a larger fireball. Photographer Li Wenbin captured a stunning fireball here, highlighted by an excellent minimalist composition with the ground and a well-lit tent.

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The 2026 total solar eclipse may have passed but, thanks to NASA photographers updating the space agency’s eclipse gallery with some of their shots from yesterday, we can relive the solar experience with some stunning shots.

While a host of photographers at the agency have shared their frames, for me, the standouts were taken by Bill Ingalls, senior photographer for NASA Headquarters, and Joel Kowsky, who also shoots for the headquarters.

Unfortunately NASA has stripped these frames of EXIF data, so we can’t see what camera and settings were used, but we can still marvel at the fantastic shots themselves.

Ingalls captured this first piece which, for me, is the pick of the bunch, near San Millán de los Caballeros – a tiny hamlet in the northern Spanish countryside.

Unlike other parts of Europe, such as the UK and France, which experienced a tantalizingly near-total eclipse, Spain experienced the full shebang – the first time in over a century.

While the different stages of the eclipse are rendered brilliantly in this composite image, it’s the sunflowers in the foreground that make it a standout in my view.

Very often, we see eclipse photos where the eclipsed Sun fills the frame. But here Ingalls took a more creative approach, incorporating landscape photography, creating an overall beautiful scene.

At first glance this next shot, from Joel Kowsky, doesn’t strike you like Ingalls’ does. However, that speck in the middle of the Sun? That’s the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA calls the ISS passing directly between the Earth and the Sun a solar transit. The event happens in a fraction of a second – usually between 0.5 and 1 second – as the station travels at roughly 5 miles / 7.5 kilometers per second.

Kowsky shot the image near Hodgdon, Maine in the northeastern US, timing the click of the shutter impeccably, to which I doff my hat. I’d love to know what shutter speed he used…

My final pick from NASA’s eclipse photos is another from Bill Ingalls. This frame is much more like the eclipse compositions you typically see, but look closer and the details reveal themselves.

Practically the whole way around the edge of the silhouetted Moon, you can see solar flares shooting out from the Sun’s corona into the vast blackness of space, culminating in a huge flare on the left-hand side.

For me, these little details transform what would otherwise be a pretty standard eclipse photo into a really spectacular one. It goes to show that Ingalls knows how to make the most of what’s in front of his lens.

These are some great shots from Ingalls and Kowsky, and I can’t wait to see what NASA photographers will share with us after the next total eclipse on August 02 2027. There will be an extraordinary 6 minutes and 22 seconds of totality, which is already being described as the “eclipse of the century”.

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A new photograph from the James Webb Space Telescope is a dazzling explosion of color – but the image also suggests that water can survive even when relatively close to a black hole.

The photograph shows a star named IRS 3, which is .55 light years away from the black hole near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, Sagittarius A*. While the photograph itself looks worthy of wall art, the new image highlights a significant find for researchers.

According to the European Space Agency and the international team of researchers, the photograph suggests the presence of oxygen-rich dust as well as the presence of water surrounding the star.

The data was picked up by James Webb’s Mid-Infrared camera – the first time that IRS 3 has been analyzed using infrared. The mid-infrared camera is capable of looking through dust clouds and helping to analyze the temperatures and chemical composition in space.

The international team reconstructed the star’s envelope by running the infrared data through simulations built around how light is known to travel.

Researchers previously thought that IRS 3’s bright mid-infrared profile was due to carbon, but the recent study suggests that IRS 3 is oxygen-rich. Researchers said that the evidence of water is a first of its kind for similar celestial objects.

“The detection of water is especially exciting because it shows that molecular material can survive in an environment dominated by intense radiation,” said Macarena Garcia Marin of ESA, one of the study’s co-authors. “This tells us that even close to a supermassive black hole, stars can continue contributing material back into their surroundings.”

IRS 3 sits in a rather hostile part of space. The area has a high concentration of stars as well as intense radiation. The study suggests that water and oxygen are more capable of surviving those harsh environments than previously believed.

IRS 3 is an aging star, and the presence of oxygen and water suggests that these late-stage stars can still influence their surroundings and emit the types of ingredients used in forming new stars and planets, even amid one of the more harsh regions of space.

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“Hurry, quick!” snapped William 'Bill' Anders, Apollo 8 lunar module pilot, as the spacecraft window he was looking out of rotated away from Earth. Just moments before, the planet had come into view, majestically rising above the barren, crater-ridden lunar landscape.

The Apollo 8 crew, which also included commander Frank Borman and command module pilot Jim Lovell, was completing their fourth orbit of the celestial body, but had yet to see the now-famous Earthrise.

However, on this rotation, everything, from the module’s orientation to the crew members’ positions, had aligned perfectly. “Oh my God, look at that picture over there!” Anders had gasped. “There’s the Earth comin’ up. Wow, is that pretty!”

Having just captured the first Earthrise photo with black-and-white film using a Hasselblad 500 EL and Zeiss Sonnar f/5.6 250mm lens, Anders wanted to immortalize the never-before-seen perspective of the planet in color, but he only had around a minute.

“Hand me that roll of color, quick, would you?” he sharply asked Jim Lovell. “Where?” replied Lovell, who had no idea where to look, and the Earth was quickly moving out of the frame of Anders’ lunar module window. “Just grab me a color, a color exterior,” Anders tensely reaffirmed.

“Yeah, I’m lookin’ for one,” Lovell shot back. Then, seconds later: “Here”, as he passed Anders the film while calling “C368”, its NASA inventory code.

But the moment had gone. Lovell’s valiant effort to dig out the color film had taken too long, and Anders’ majestic view of the planet had been replaced by the endless black expanse of space. “Well, I think we missed it,” he sighed.

Then, after what seemed like an eternity of anticlimactic silence, Lovell ecstatically claimed: “Bill, I got it right here,” as, by chance, the Earth reappeared in another of the lunar module’s windows. “Bill, I got it framed, it’s very clear right here,” he almost shouted in excitement.

“Take several, take several of ’em,” Lovell commanded as Anders quickly moved into position, who had to tell his colleague to “calm down” in the process. But Lovell knew the moment was again passing: “250 at f/11,” he said, before blurting: “Now vary the exposure a little bit.”

ABOVE: NASA recreated the iconic "Earthrise" moment in real time, thanks to the Apollo 8 onboard recordings and cameras

Two clicks of the shutter later and Anders had captured the iconic Earthrise frame. Everyone on Earth would now get to see this unbelievable perspective of the planet that, otherwise, only these three astronauts would ever have seen.

Now, I’m not saying you need to plan every single shoot to a tee. After all, the Earthrise image turned out fine. Well, more than fine, as it went on to become one of the most reproduced and recognizable photos of all time.

But if there’s one thing we can take away from this incredible, funny and history-making story, it’s that, as a photographer, it pays to be prepared. And, depending on your shoot, that could even mean having an extra roll of film (or memory card, for digital photographers) within arm’s reach.

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The 2026 solar eclipse only reached totality for a small slice of the globe, but thanks to talented photographers and videographers, my feed is drowning in eclipse photos so good, they don’t even look real.

While GenAI means I should be rightfully wary of the photos in my feed, the reason that the best eclipse photos look too good to be true has nothing to do with software – and everything to do with optics.

From a wingsuiter flying through the eclipse to a skateboarder in mid-air in front of a giant eclipse, the best photos and videos coming from the 2026 eclipse have an unreal quality for one simple reason: the eclipse looks far too large.

In some shots, the eclipse dominates the frame, appearing larger-than-life in the background. But the moon actually doesn’t look that big from Earth, so how are photographers and videographers creating jaw-dropping artwork that makes the eclipse appear so large?

The answer lies in a powerful photography trick: forced perspective.

Forced perspective is a type of optical illusion that makes something look larger than it really is. This is the same type of trick that tourists use to make it look like the Eiffel Tower fits in a hand, only in reverse.

In photography, there are two key components to getting the moon or sun – and thus the eclipse – to look larger than it really is using forced perspective.

First, when the sun and moon are the closest to the horizon, they will look larger than when positioned higher in the sky. That’s one of the reasons why the total eclipse over Spain was so unusual, as totality happened near sunset while the sun and moon were close to the horizon.

But the other key part of the trick is the lens. A telephoto lens makes the background appear larger in the photo than a wide-angle lens does. This is called lens compression.

The longer the telephoto lens is, the larger the eclipse appears in the background – so those extremely large eclipses are the result of extremely long telephotos, sometimes aided with teleconverters.

This photo was taken with a telephoto lens:

This photo was taken by the same photographer, but with a wider lens, making the eclipse look smaller:

Another key component is that the subject should be far away as well – as something up close to the lens will look much larger than the eclipse in the background.

The photos making the eclipse look unnaturally large are a result of using extreme telephoto lenses, a distant subject, and positioning the eclipse close to the horizon. No, photographers don’t have the power to move the sun, but they can make the eclipse appear even closer to the horizon by using hills, plateaus, and buildings.

These larger-than-life eclipse shots not only require heavy, expensive lenses, but often advanced planning to find a location that will heighten the effect by making the eclipse appear as close to the horizon as possible. And that makes the stunning photos and videos coming from the 2026 solar eclipse all the more jaw-dropping.

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Solar eclipses are often once-in-a-lifetime shots, but mix the celestial event with extreme sports, and photographers have mere seconds to get the shot. That was certainly the case when photographer Noah Wetzel set out to capture a photo of a wingsuit flyer crossing in front of the 2026 eclipse.

The photograph freezes Red Bull athlete Mike Brewer crossing the total eclipse in a wingsuit, traveling at more than 150mph (241kph) and only 15 feet (4.5m) above a ridgeline over a remote desert near Madrid, Spain, near sunset on August 12.

While solar eclipses happen somewhere on Earth around every 18 months, the August 12 eclipse was unusual not just because it was the first total eclipse that Spain has seen since 1905, but because the moon passed over the sun just near sunset.

The sun and moon tend to appear the largest when closest to the horizon, so the timing of the 2026 eclipse in Spain meant Wetzel could play with forced perspective – an optical illusion that makes objects appear larger – and extreme telephoto optics in order to make the eclipse seem larger than life.

Telephoto lenses will make the sun and moon appear larger, but for this shot, just one telephoto lens wouldn’t do. Wetzel used the Canon EOS R5 Mark II with two interconnected Canon 600mm f/4 L IS USM lenses, setting up nearly a mile away from the path of the wingsuit flight.

While the lenses would help the eclipse appear larger in the frame, the eclipse presented another problem: almost complete darkness. Wetzel set up a complex wireless flash system on the plateau to help freeze the action of the wingsuits and prevent a silhouette.

Wetzel would only have 84 seconds to get the shot – a photograph that is the result of nine months of planning and 600 hours of practice and test runs. The team also did a test run at dawn in Utah that required rafting to the location and hiking up a mountain in the desert. A local wingsuiter – Dani Román – also helped with the planning and flew that day as well.

“I can’t express how insanely challenging that was to line up that photograph,” Wetzel said. “I couldn’t be more stoked with the result. That is as good as it gets and has to be one of…if not the most complex, precise, and pressure-saturated photographs ever captured. That took everything I had in me, and I can honestly say I will probably never pursue another photograph on that level in my career again.”

The photograph wasn’t Wetzel’s first jaw-dropping eclipse photo – he previously won a Red Bull Illume award in 2019 for an eclipse shot with a mountain biker.

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Parts of North America and Europe were wowed by the standout astrophotography event of the year, yesterday evening: a total solar eclipse. Switzerland-based Nikon photographer Angel Fux (@angelfux) traveled to Spain to capture the phenomenon in the optimal location, following over two years of preparation. She had just 103 seconds to capture the moment, all while operating two Nikon cameras and following strict safety precautions.

I was lucky enough to chat to the landscape and astrophotographer – who is known for hiking out to secluded mountainous locations – just days before the event. Angel had promised to deliver a stunning photograph of the total eclipse for publication, and as you read on to find out just how much planning was involved, you’ll realize that the gorgeous images that populate this article were never in doubt.

How Angel Fux prepared for the 2026 total solar eclipse

Digital Camera World: It took you over two years to prepare for this shoot. How did you go about researching the location?

Angel Fux: “When I first learned that a total solar eclipse would cross Europe in August 2026, I immediately felt there was an opportunity to create something very different from my usual astrophotography work. I knew I wanted to approach it as an artistic project rather than simply documenting the event.

“Like most of my projects, the research started on Google Earth. I spent countless hours virtually exploring landscapes along the path of totality, looking for locations that resonated with the kind of scenery I’m naturally drawn to. Mountains have always been where I feel most inspired, so I was searching for landscapes that carried some of that feeling while still preserving the identity of northern Spain.

“Along the way, it was recommended that I look into a particular area, and a viewpoint immediately stood out. It required a bit of scrambling to reach the summit, but the panorama was exactly what I had hoped for.

My decision to choose Spain was mainly driven by weather. Greenland and Iceland were incredibly tempting, but for an event that lasts only a few precious minutes, I wanted to maximize my chances of clear skies.”

DCW: You even rehearsed the shoot beforehand: How on Earth does that work?

AF: “It sounds funny at first – how do you rehearse an eclipse when you don't actually have one? The reality is that you're not rehearsing the eclipse itself; you're rehearsing everything around it. Over the past few months, I've repeated my entire shooting sequence many times. The goal is to make every movement almost instinctive by the time totality arrives. That means practicing camera settings, timing, switching between cameras, checking focus, and following a precise sequence under time pressure.

“The only step I obviously don't perform is removing the solar filter, because the sun isn't eclipsed during practice. Everything else can be rehearsed exactly as it will happen on eclipse day.

“Practice sessions are also invaluable for testing exposure settings. I compared different apertures, shutter speeds and ISO combinations, then carefully reviewed every frame afterwards to determine what works best for my equipment. By the time the eclipse happened, I wanted as many decisions as possible to have already been made.”

DCW: What split-second decisions could you be forced to make when the Moon passes in front of the Sun?

AF: “Ideally, none.

“The entire reason for months of preparation is to reduce the number of decisions that have to be made during those precious minutes. Every step is carefully planned beforehand. If something does require a last-second adjustment, it’s most likely weather-related. Even thin clouds passing in front of the sun can change the exposure enough to require small adjustments.

“Another important consideration is focus. Because this eclipse happens very close to sunset, atmospheric turbulence becomes more significant as the sun approaches the horizon. I therefore plan one final focus check just before totality begins to ensure everything remains perfectly sharp. The less you have to think during totality, the more you can actually experience it.”

DCW: You’re shooting with two cameras; does this double the decision-making process in the moment?

AF: “Not necessarily. The two camera setups have been designed to complement each other rather than compete for my attention. One camera is dedicated to a close-up view of the eclipse, while the other captures a much wider perspective.

“Because those two shots have different technical requirements, I’ve deliberately planned the sequence so I don’t have to perform critical actions on both cameras at exactly the same moment. It certainly adds more steps to the workflow, but they’re sequential rather than simultaneous.”

DCW: How and why did you select the Nikon Z8, Nikon Z 400mm f/4.5 VR S and Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S?

AF: “The Nikon Z8 has become a camera I know and trust completely. I’ve been working with Nikon equipment for over fifteen years, and the Z8 has accompanied me through some very demanding environments – from freezing alpine nights to high-altitude expeditions. Reliability becomes incredibly important when you only get one chance.

“The Nikon Z 400mm f/4.5 VR S was chosen because I wanted something between 300mm and 500mm that offered an excellent balance between reach, image quality and portability. For this project, it felt like the perfect focal length. The Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S lens, on the other hand, is probably the lens that best represents my photography.

“Most of my landscapes and night sky images are made somewhere within that focal range. It allows me to place the eclipse within its wider environment while capturing the dramatic changes happening across the sky during totality.”

DCW: Are budget solar filters effective or are quality alternatives worth investing in?

AF: “For me, certified solar filters are absolutely worth investing in. Beyond protecting both your eyesight and your equipment, a well-designed filter can also make your workflow significantly smoother.

“For example, I’m using a magnetic filter system that allows me to remove and replace the filter very quickly during the narrow window around totality. When you’re working with seconds rather than minutes, that kind of practical advantage

becomes very valuable. Ultimately, you’re protecting equipment worth thousands of dollars – and more importantly, your eyesight. That’s not an area where I’d personally choose to compromise.”

DCW: Has working with mirrorless tech made checking your exposure and focus much easier?

AF: “Yes, although I usually start by letting autofocus acquire the sun first before switching immediately to manual focus for the remainder of the sequence. Modern mirrorless cameras make that entire process much easier.

“Being able to magnify the live view, use focus peaking and check exposure in real time gives you a level of confidence that simply wasn’t available years ago. The autofocus systems themselves have also become remarkably reliable, so acquiring initial focus is incredibly straightforward before making those final manual refinements.”

DCW: What’s your top tip for beginner photographers looking to get into astro or solar photography?

AF: “I’d actually separate astrophotography and solar photography because they’re very different disciplines.

“For astrophotography, my advice is simple: start with the equipment you already own. That’s exactly how I began, with a fairly basic wide-angle lens and a tripod. The most important thing is simply getting outside and experimenting. Every night teaches you something new, and little by little you’ll understand what additional equipment would genuinely benefit your photography.

“Solar photography is quite different. Personally, I find it becomes much more exciting with longer focal lengths, but it’s also a field where safety has to come first. Before thinking about the photograph itself, learn how to properly protect both your eyes and your equipment using certified solar filters. Once that’s in place, experimenting with longer focal lengths opens up a fascinating world of detail that most people never get to see.”

DCW: Can you tell me a little bit about the short film you’re making with Nikon?

AF: “The film isn’t intended to explain how to photograph an eclipse – it aims to capture what it feels like to prepare for one. One thing I heard over and over while listening to experienced eclipse chasers or people who have experienced one, is that a total solar eclipse is almost impossible to describe. Everyone says the same thing: You simply have to experience it for yourself. That became the starting point for the film.

“Rather than making a technical documentary, we’re creating something much more cinematic and emotional. The story follows the anticipation, the preparation, the uncertainty, and ultimately that overwhelming sense of awe that comes from witnessing one of nature’s rarest spectacles.

“Alongside the film, I’ll also be unveiling the final artwork created for this project, which forms one of the central creative threads throughout the story. The film is being co-directed and produced together with filmmaker Prince Berkoh, whom I’ve known for several years. From the beginning, I felt he was the perfect creative partner for this project. He immediately understood the emotional direction we wanted to take, and collaborating with him has been instrumental in bringing this vision to life. Together, our goal isn’t simply to show an eclipse, but to inspire people to experience one for themselves.”

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Looking for a step-by-step guide to photographing a future solar eclipse? Here's how to photograph a total solar eclipse. If you're looking for other subjects to photograph in the sky, here's our guide to Astrophotography in August 2026. Plus, here are the best cameras for astrophotography.

Astrophotography to me has always seemed like a mix between planning, technique – and sheer luck. I was photographing the Northern Lights a few days ago when I managed to capture another astrophotography phenomenon in the same frame: a Perseid meteor.

While photographing the Northern Lights requires ideal conditions and the lights are often short-lived, that’s not entirely true for the Perseids. The meteors still need clear skies and low light pollution, but they're hardly a one-night-only show. While the Perseid meteors peak August 12-13, the meteor shower stretches from July 17 through August 24, leaving plenty of room to re-plan if clouds get in the way.

I took this photo on August 2, a full ten days before the peak of the meteor shower would heighten my chances of catching one – or several – in the same frame.

The challenging part about photographing the Perseids is that if I wait until I see one streak across the sky, I’ve already missed my shot. Catching the meteors on camera typically involves a long exposure time and taking multiple shots.

But trying to get the Northern Lights and a meteor in the same shot proved even trickier. The Northern Lights were close to the horizon, not overhead. I still wanted the lights reflected off the lake to be in the shot, so the sky only takes up part of the frame.

I managed to catch a meteor on the upper edge of the frame by digging out the widest lens that I have in my bag: The Venus Optics Laowa 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D, which, on my Fujifilm X-T4, is a 13.5mm lens in full-frame equivalent.

The 9mm is a recent addition to my camera bag that I added to my wish list specifically for astrophotography. The lens is one of the most affordable lenses in my bag (excluding the PolarPro LightLeak and a vintage film lens I picked up at a garage sale).

One of the reasons that the 9mm sits more on the affordable side is that it’s a manual-focus-only lens. I usually prefer autofocus lenses, but autofocus doesn’t work on the stars (at least, not for most cameras), so I knew I wouldn’t miss it too much.

I didn’t manage to catch the Perseid meteors until after the Northern Lights seemed to slow down a bit from the pillars that I spotted just after sunset. But I was ecstatic to catch multiple night sky phenomena in one shot, without stacking multiple images together.

The Perseids peak August 12-13 and continue through August 24. Read more on how to plan and what camera settings to use in this guide on how to photograph the Perseids.

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NASA has shared new images of the Lion Nebula captured with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – and the frames depict the celestial marvel in a level of detail that astronomers were yet to see.

The Lion Nebula, or NGC 2392, is the shrunken core of a dying star (a white dwarf) surrounded by expanding gas and dust located roughly 6,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Gemini.

First discovered by the astronomer William Herschel in 1787, it was historically called the Eskimo Nebula. However, in 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the cosmic body, revealing how it looked more like a lion.

Hubble proved how the central dwarf acted as the "nose", a glowing bubble of ionized gas formed the fierce "face" and an illuminated shell of dust stretched out as the "mane".

Recently the American space agency pictured the nebula again, this time with the JWST.

Using the telescopes NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera), which measures light in the near-infrared spectrum, and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), which captures longer infrared wavelengths, astronomers revealed details that Hubble couldn’t.

The images highlighted features like compact clumps of dust and a haze of ionized gas, helping astronomers to better understand how lower-mass stars die, shed their material and shape the surrounding universe.

According to NASA, it’s taken NGC 2392 thousands of years to form its current shape – and the nebula’s components will continue changing until its gas and dust migrate away from the stellar core.

Astronomers estimate that the lion will eventually disperse in approximately 10,000 years – a relatively "short period in astronomical terms", the space agency said.

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NASA has released an image of a vast section of Antarctic ice – and you’re not going to believe what can be seen on the surface. Engraved into the ice is what appears to be a massive, highly detailed hummingbird rendered in magenta and green colors.

The image was captured by NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), a joint US-Indian space agency (ISRO) satellite that monitors the movements of Earth’s land and ice masses.

This device, which orbits roughly 450 miles above the surface of the planet, creates imagery by shooting radar waves at the Earth and then measuring the travel time, strength and direction of the returning signal. This enables scientists to determine the lay of the land, who assign different colors to the varying topography.

The NISAR satellite is the first device NASA has ever sent into space to feature two SAR instruments at different wavelengths, which collect data using the satellite’s enormous drum-shaped reflector, spanning 39 feet (12 meters) wide, also making it the largest radar antenna reflector NASA has ever sent into space.

“First, it’s a beautiful image, with rich details of features that provide insights to how the glacier is moving,” said Seongsu Jeong, the NASA signal analysis engineer who produced the image.

Jeong explained that scientists are able to see what’s “hidden beneath the surface” thanks to NISAR’s radar, which can pierce through snow and deep into the ice.

According to NASA, what the image actually shows is a geographical feature called Nunatak Zaterjavshijsja (Russian for 'lost mountain'), a mountaintop in East Antarctica, around which flows streams of ice toward the ocean.

As the underlying glacier moves, the mountain’s topography stresses the ice. This creates deep fractures, called crevasses, which show as sharp green lines in the image, while the unaffected, smooth ice shows up as magenta.

NISAR was launched in July last year and, since then, has captured a range of fascinating images, including urban street grids, agricultural fields, landslides, earthquakes, and sinking land in Mexico City.

Shortly before the satellite's one-year anniversary, NASA and ISRO made access to NISAR’s data public, with teams in the US and India releasing files from the powerful radar instruments on an “ongoing basis.”

You can access the ISRO data via the Bhoonidhi portal, while NASA releases NISAR data - which it calls “data products” – via the Vertex Data Search and Earthdata Search.

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I have been photographing solar eclipses for the last 47 years, and in the first two parts of the series I recounted my first four efforts at photographing them on land and sea around the American continent.

My next, and last, three solar eclipses were experienced in the last ten years, and were very different. First because I was not using digital cameras, rather than film. But more importantly, the internet was now everywhere. And its influence on what became “The Great American Eclipse” was unbelievable…

My fifth solar eclipse: August 21 2017

I’d chosen to go to Orin Junction, Wyoming, to see this eclipse. About 8 to 10 minutes further down the road was Glendo, Wyoming, and I’m sure glad I didn’t go there! Well, we did go there, but we’ll come back to that.

We got off to a good start, at the US border, where I was detained in handcuffs, and taken straight to a cell. There they were busy instructing me how to place my feet – a pattern I knew from an ex-con who’d told me that was the placement so that when you drop your drawers and bend over for a cavity search, you don’t fall over. It was not something I was looking forward to! At that moment, a female border agent dashed into the room, yelling, “You’ve got the wrong man!” Instantly the agent’s tone changed from their polite, but officious manner to a soft, “Well, we’d best get these handcuffs off you!”

I never did learn who they were looking for, though I think I know why. Still, we were delayed two hours, our car searched by both agents and dogs, but eventually sent on our way. It’s not an experience I’d want to repeat.

The “place to be” was Casper, Wyoming, as it was a major center, and on the centre-line. But hotel prices were ridiculous and we ended up in Sheridan, two hours' drive north of Casper, where I could reserve a room for only double the usual price. And that reservation was made almost two years before the event. For this was truly the age of the internet. The eclipse had been promoted as “The Great American Eclipse” and was, indeed, the first to cross the USA since 1979.

Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people across the US, were encouraged to go at the last minute. Without planning. They thought they’d just go and pick up a motel room, along the way. Much as we had done many years before.

Our room had a window, overlooking the pathway to the motel’s office. All evening long, we watched people leaving, often in tears. They’d come at the suggestion of the internet, without reservations, and had gone, motel to motel, desperately looking for a room.

The morning of the eclipse we headed south at 5.30 am, and when we got to Casper my wife said she’d like a cup of tea. I pulled into a McDonald’s which was busier than any restaurant I’d ever seen. It took us well over 90 minutes to get a single cup of tea. As we drove, every park in Casper was filled with tripods and telescopes. Every wide spot on the Interstate 25, was chock full of people and telescopes.

I’d selected Orin Junction as it was almost perfectly on the center-line, with prospects of good seeing yet small enough (a population of just under 50 at the time) to not encourage people to go there. But I missed the turnoff and ended up in Glendo, just down the road. They’d been silly enough to put a notice on the internet saying they were on the center-line and were welcoming eclipse chasers. This little town of 209 people received some 50,000 visitors! We used their overpass to turn around, but access to the town itself was blocked by police cars with flashing lights. That town was full!

We got back to Orin Junction to find it consisted of a single, Sinclair gas station, and parked cars as far as the eye could see. Parking looked to be impossible! Luckily, someone pulled out, presumably heading for a better position, so I pulled in. We set up our tripod and chairs in the ditch, some 25 feet (8 meters) away, and had a wonderful view!

By that time, I was using Leica’s 400mm f/6.8, “trombone focus” lens for my wildlife shots, and trying to find the sun with a filter on is difficult. The easy, low-cost solution is a DIY Pinhole Projection Finder. Dimensions are not critical and mostly determined by how your lens is made. You can use cardboard, wood, stiff boxboard or whatever you’ve got, I used acrylic plastic as I had some to spare. I used bits of cylindrical rod (wooden doweling would work) for my base as it will adapt to any diameter lens. The front has a black card with a tiny (1mm or so) hole. The rear panel has a white or cream card. On eclipse day, mount your finder on your lens with a rubber band, gaffers or masking tape, or what-have-you. I used a large hose clamp with a small piece of fabric underneath to prevent scratching.

On eclipse day, with your filter on, find the sun and make a small X where the beam of light from the hole in the front panel hits the rear panel. That’s it. As the sun moves during the eclipse, it’s bog-simple to loosen your tripod head and reset it so the spot of light is still on the X. When most eclipses last only a minute or three, this speed and convenience is essential. It works remarkably well and is completely safe. I suggest you make on early, and test it before the eclipse.

This was my first eclipse using a digital camera and I quickly discovered that unlike film, the shiny surface of my sensor created repeating reflections with the glass solar filter. The cure was to simply tilt the filter on the lens (see photo above) for a quick fix.

Some 20,000 people had gone to the Baja for the 1991 Eclipse. Some 100,000+ people went to the area around Casper, Wyoming. And the difference was the internet.

My sixth solar eclipse: October 14 2023

The best laid plans.... I’d booked a motel in Winnemucca, Nevada, a small town of 8000 souls, which was right on the centerline of the Annular eclipse. I’ve still not been to Winnemucca, as just before I was to leave, my wife was thrown from a horse and spent the next 20 days in the hospital.

My trip was instantly cancelled, but I proved you can still get some fascinating shots, even if you’re 1160km (720 miles) off the centre-line. Of course, from my backyard it was only a partial eclipse, and the clouds were so thick that the shot above was taken without a solar filter!

My seventh solar eclipse: April 8 2024

The peak duration for this eclipse was in Texas, but we opted for Milan, Ohio, so we could pick up a favorite cousin in Michigan and, at 90 years of age, have her see her first eclipse. Totality was still almost three minutes. As per the new standard, we booked well over a year ahead, and discovered that while the town was packed, our hotel was on the outskirts, and had a huge, empty field adjacent to the property. So, we watched the eclipse from there, with a few family members and a small number of other hotel guests. Some thin, high clouds did not hinder the view. Very civilized.

Be sure to have a proper filter on your lens at all times – other than during totality. Remember, the pentaprisms in SLRs make a distinctive “tink” when they get too hot and crack, because someone didn’t use a filter and aimed their camera at the sun! It is also easy to burn your sensor in a mirrorless camera if aimed at the sun, without a filter in place. And never look at the sun through binoculars (unless they are specialist solar binoculars), or a camera with a telephoto lens without a filter attached. Both capture far more light than your eye, and it is super easy to permanently damage your eye. Most of all, don’t get so involved with your camera that you forget to look up! It’s a sight you’ll never forget!

The next North American total solar eclipse will be August 22 2044 with the eclipse underway at sunrise in Greenland. An unusually wide (281 miles/453 km) path of totality will then sweep across the Arctic, traverse parts of BC and nearly all of Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan, before winding up in Montana and the Dakotas. Totality peaks at two minutes and four seconds. I’m pushing 80 now, so I’m not sure I’ll see that one. But, I hope you do.

Back in February, NASA finally allowed astronauts to start taking their personal camera phones into space. Since then, we’ve been seeing all sorts of amazing images – especially taken in portrait orientation.

The latest of these comes from Anil Menon, a flight engineer part of NASA Expedition 75, who snapped a fantastic frame looking into the eye of Super Typhoon Dolphin as it swirled above the Northwest Pacific Ocean.

While Menon isn’t necessarily a photography specialist, he seems to have a good eye for working out the visual weight of an image and dedicating the right amount of space to elements in the frame.

I think he gets this spot on by affording the top half of the frame to the typhoon and almost the entire bottom half to the International Space Station (ISS). He leaves a sliver of the dark expanse of space between these elements, which gives the image some breathing room, but also adds to the “awe factor”.

While I think this composition could also have turned out great if taken in landscape orientation, it’s the vertical framing that makes it work so well for me.

Menon blasted into space on July 14 2026 and is expected to remain aboard the ISS until spring 2027, where he is helping to research bioprinting human tissues and cells, and using artificial intelligence for crew health monitoring.

He joined European Space Agency astronauts who were already aboard the ISS including Sophie Adenot, herself an avid photographer with a stellar portfolio of images from her current stint in space.

Like Adenot, Menon has been active on social media (via NASA HQ) and has already posted many clips and images of the crew and their extraordinary views from orbit. And while a lot of his content has been captured in landscape mode, it’s the portrait frames that tend to catch my eye first.

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If you’re an astrophotographer looking for an exciting and unique project, go get a calendar and put a ring around Wednesday, August 12, 2026. On that day — after lunch in North America and just before sunset in Western Europe — the sun will be eclipsed by the moon. Depending on exactly where you are, it will range from something relatively minor to a landmark celestial event for the ages. But regardless of where you are in the Northern Hemisphere, after dark, the annual Perseid meteor shower will reach its peak beneath moonless skies — and in peak Milky Way season.

Do you travel for the eclipse? Or head to dark skies for the meteor shower? On August 12, you can do both. Sure, the eclipse and the Perseids have different observing requirements, but they both reward the exact same approach. Here’s how to make a plan for an entire day and night of shooting the sky.

Read: 10 must-shoot events for astrophotographers in 2026

Planning for the solar eclipse

The eclipse itself will look very different depending on where you are in the world, though to see anything at all, you must be in Western Europe, the northwestern tip of Africa or in North America.

Total solar eclipse: Greenland, Iceland and Spain

Travelers within a narrow path of the moon’s shadow in eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain will experience totality, when the moon completely covers the sun and day briefly turns to night. Along the centerline of that path, totality will last up to 2 minutes 18 seconds (off the coast of Iceland), down to 1 minute 35 seconds in Mallorca, Spain. The further east you travel on the path, the lower the eclipse will take place in the sky, with Mallorca seeing totality minutes before sunset.

Read: 8 tips on photographing a total solar eclipse

Deep partial solar eclipse: UK, Europe and northeast Africa

Across the UK, a deep partial eclipse will occur about 90 minutes before sunset. Over 95% of the sun will be obscured from many locations, making it the most significant solar eclipse visible from Britain since 2015. Maximum eclipse occurs about 13 degrees above the horizon, so a relatively clear horizon slightly north of due west will be essential.

Across much of western and central Europe and northwest Africa, observers will also see a deep partial solar eclipse, but closer to sunset. In some locations (including Algiers in Algeria, Corsica, Venice, Vienna, Prague and Warsaw), the sun will sink below the horizon while still heavily eclipsed, creating opportunities for dramatic photography that are not possible in the UK.

Small partial solar eclipse: North America

In northeastern North America, the partial solar eclipse will be smaller, with parts of eastern Canada seeing around 50% of the sun blocked by the moon and the northeastern U.S. seeing more modest partial phases during the afternoon. The eclipse will occur high in the sky in early afternoon.

Useful resources for understanding the eclipse and simulating exactly what you’ll see from any location include TimeAndDate.com, TPE’s Eclipse Simulator and Xavier Jubier’s Interactive Google Map.

Read: How to photograph a partial solar eclipse

Planning for the Perseids

In Europe, sightlines to the eclipse will need to be taken into account, but the instinct is to choose an eclipse location first and think about the Perseids later. A better strategy is to do the reverse.

An eclipse merely requires a clear view of the sun, with light pollution irrelevant. However, to see the meteor shower at its best, you'll need dark skies far from towns and cities. That means the ideal location for August 12 is a dark-sky reserve, national park, rural coastline or remote campsite that provides a perfectly good eclipse view while also giving you excellent meteor-watching conditions later that night.

If you’re already making the effort to travel, it makes sense to choose somewhere you can stay after sunset rather than relocating immediately. Besides, if you’re in the path of totality, relocating amid post-eclipse traffic may be near-impossible.

Useful resources for finding dark skies include a light pollution map, the Dark Sky Places finder and, for the U.K, a map of Dark Sky Discovery locations.

Read: How to photograph the Perseid meteor shower

Choosing a location

For observers in the UK, the relatively low altitude of the eclipsed sun makes horizon access the priority. Coastal viewpoints, hilltops and open landscapes with a clear view to the west-northwest are where to be. Since you'll need to stay out late for the Perseids anyway, dark-sky locations such as national parks, moorland areas and remote coastlines deserve particular attention. Across Europe, the eclipse becomes a sunset event. The closer you are to the sunset line, the more important an unobstructed western horizon becomes.

In North America, the eclipse is less dramatic, which arguably makes the Perseids the main attraction. Locations in Atlantic Canada, Maine and other northeastern regions where the eclipse is most significant offer the best combination of eclipse magnitude and dark skies, making them ideal destinations for an overnight astrophotography road trip/camping trip.

Although it’s wise to choose somewhere that works for both the eclipse and the Perseids, weather could, of course, force a change of plans. Fortunately, neither the partial eclipse nor the Perseids requires a fixed observing site. Unlike totality, where being in exactly the right place matters enormously, a deep partial eclipse or a meteor shower can often be rescued with a well-timed drive to clearer skies.

Know the celestial schedule

Whether August 12 is a relaxed or tense affair will depend on where you are. In North America, the eclipse is in the afternoon and not a particularly dramatic event, meaning there’s time to take a break afterward and prepare for the Perseids. For everyone in Europe — whether in the path of totality or not — the eclipse will be tense and dramatic (particularly if there are clouds in the sky) because the prize is bigger, and there’s not much of a gap between the end of the eclipse and darkness.

However, the Perseids are best after midnight, when the radiant in the constellation Perseus climbs higher into the northeastern night sky. With the moon absent from the sky (by definition, a solar eclipse is only possible at new moon), even relatively dark rural locations should provide excellent viewing conditions. Under very dark skies, dozens of meteors per hour may be visible.

Read: How to photograph the Milky Way

Dark places for the eclipse and Perseids

Possible dark sky locations ideal for shooting both the eclipse and the peak of the Perseids across western Europe and North America are endless, but here’s a selection to give you an idea. The list does not include Greenland or Iceland, where darkness is in short supply in August, but does include some locations within the path of totality:

• Centro Astronómico Trevinca, Galicia, Spain (total solar eclipse for 40 seconds at 8:29 p.m. CEST)
• Bardenas Reales Natural Park, Navarre, Spain (total solar eclipse for 1 minute, 4 seconds at 8:28 p.m. CEST)
• Laguna de Gallocanta, Aragon, Spain (total solar eclipse for 1 minute and 42 seconds at 8:30 p.m. CEST)
• Cévennes National Park, France (96% partial solar eclipse at 8:24 p.m. CEST)
• Kerry International Dark Sky Reserve, Ireland (98% partial solar eclipse at 7:13 p.m. BST)
• Exmoor National Park & Dark Sky Reserve, England (94% partial solar eclipse at 7:14 p.m. BST)
• Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park & Dark Sky Reserve, Wales (93% partial solar eclipse at 7:11 p.m. BST)
• Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog) Dark Sky Reserve, Wales (93% partial solar eclipse at 7:13 p.m. BST)
• Gros Morne National Park Dark Sky Preserve, Newfoundland, Canada (49% partial solar eclipse at 3:26 p.m. NDT)
• Mont-Mégantic Dark Sky Reserve, Quebec, Canada (22% partial solar eclipse at 1:49 p.m. EDT)
• Acadia National Park, Maine, U.S. (24% partial solar eclipse at 1:54 p.m. EDT)
• Cherry Springs Dark Sky Park, Pennsylvania, U.S. (7% partial solar eclipse at 1:46 p.m. EDT)

Read more:

• Astrophotography tools: the best camera, lenses and gear

• The best lenses for astrophotography

• The best star tracker camera mounts

Scientists have captured the highest-ever-resolution images of the surface of the Sun, with the pictures revealing a solar process that could be key to solving the “puzzle” of how the surface of the star generates heat.

Astrophysicists based at the National Science Foundation (NSF) National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Boulder, Colorado, used the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), in Hawaii, to capture the frames, which depicted Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities (KHIs).

Above: watch the swirling plasma in the Sun's photosphere, captured by the DKIST, reveal KHI processes

KHIs occur when there’s a speed difference within a single continuous fluid. This process is well known in astrophysics and had previously been observed in the outermost layer of the Sun (corona). However, the new DKIST images are the first known confirmation of this process taking place in the photosphere: the lower, visible layer of the Sun that emits most of its light.

Dr. Friedrich Wöger, a senior scientist at the NSO and co-lead on the study, said: “We’ve seen the Sun’s large-scale events, but we’ve been missing some of the small-scale physics that power these events - the “tiny engines” that drive solar activity. The Inouye [telescope] gives us a clearer view of these processes, and KHI may be one of these engines.”

With the help of scientists from the Max Planck Institute, Dr. Wöger used a high-speed camera housed within the telescope, known as FastCam, to capture the pictures. The system snapped 740 grayscale frames per second, with an exposure time of 1/10,000sec per frame, on a sensor area of 2,048 x 1024 pixels (around 2.1 megapixels).

Ironically, the images, which were later colorized in post-processing, were never intended to reveal KHIs in the Sun’s photosphere. The main aim of the study was to test a new approach for gathering data with the DKIST, with Dr. Wöger describing the discovery as a “happy accident,” but one that has helped solve one of the star’s many “mysteries.”

“To better understand and eventually forecast the Sun’s most disruptive behaviors, we first have to understand the tiny physical processes that drive it,” he said. “The more of these pieces we find, and in greater detail thanks to powerful tools like the NSF Inouye Solar Telescope, the clearer and more complete our understanding becomes.”

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In a week's time, on Wednesday August 12, there is going to be a solar eclipse - which will be visible for throughout Europe, the UK, and in parts of North America.

How much of the sun will be obscured by the moon will depend on exactly where you are – and if you are in the right part of Spain, Greenland or Iceland you will see a total solar eclipse. In other places marked out on the map below you can still see a partial solar eclipse – and check out precise timings, and how total the eclipse is, on this website.

But whether total or partial, you will need special glasses to look at the sun. These have special film that greatly reduce the brightness of the sun to a level so you can observe it safely - think of them like a neutral density filter on steroids!

Fortunately, these glasses don't need to be expensive - the simplest have cardboard frames to keep the cost down. But you do need to make sure you get them in advance – as the chances are your corner shop won't stock them. And we during the Great American Eclipse in 2024 we saw some online stores selling up to the event.

The key thing to check, however, is that the glasses that you buy conform to the ISO 12312-2 standard- this ensures that they are fit for purpose. It goes without saying that looking directly at the sun without protection can be extremely dangerous and can cause blindness.

Below you can see some of the glasses that are still in stock, and which you can buy to arrive in time for the eclipse…

If you want to photograph the eclipse, or view it through a telescope you MUST use a special solar filter – you can see our full guide to choosing and buying one of these. For a closer view of the eclipse, it is possible to buy special solar eclipse binoculars.

I seldom shoot at night unless I’m waiting for a sunrise, but I’ll definitely be making the most of the astrophotography on offer this August. From the middle of the month through to the end, there are a host of galactic spectacles to capture with your camera, and NASA has kindly provided its top tips - which we’ve summarized here – to enjoy them.

There are four major events this month: a solar eclipse (August 12), the Perseid meteor shower (August 12-13), Venus shining bright after sunset (August 14-16), and a lunar eclipse (August 27-28). But no matter which event you’re gearing up to photograph, be sure to cast a quick eye over the following pointers to set yourself up properly.

Solar eclipse (August 12)

A total solar eclipse crosses northern Russia, Greenland, Iceland, and northern Spain, with a small corner of Portugal inside the path of totality.

However, you will see a partial solar eclipse in many other places. There's a 90% or more eclipse in Ireland, Great Britain, Portugal, France, Italy, the Balkans and North Africa. But there will be at least some eclipsing of the sun in most of Europe and North America.

Watching safely is key. Use certified eclipse glasses or a safe solar viewer if any part of the Sun is visible. Regular sunglasses are not safe. And never use binoculars, a telescope, or a camera without a solar filter made for the front of the optics.

In-depth guide: How to photograph the 2026 solar eclipse

Perseid meteor shower (August 12-13)

The Perseids happen every year when Earth passes through a debris stream left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle. As those tiny bits of comet dust hit our atmosphere at high speed, they burn up as bright streaks of light.

To view this meteor shower, look toward the northeast once it's fully dark and watch for the constellation Perseus to clear the horizon. This is where the meteors originate, but let your eyes wander, because they can flash across any part of the sky. For the best view, stay out late as the stars climb higher, find a dark open spot, and give your eyes 30 minutes to adjust.

Venus after sunset (August 14-16)

Venus reaches its greatest eastern elongation, which is its widest apparent separation from the Sun during this evening appearance. Look low in the western sky shortly after sunset for the bright object that will outshine every star around it. Through a telescope after sunset, Venus will look close to half lit, like a tiny lunar phase.

Lunar eclipse (August 27-28)

On the night of August 27, continuing into August 28 for some time zones, the Full Moon slips through Earth's shadow, resulting in a partial lunar eclipse. It will be visible from much of North and South America and parts of Europe and Africa. At maximum eclipse, about 93% of the Moon's diameter will be inside Earth's dark central shadow, called the umbra.

The Moon will not be completely covered, but it can look dramatically darkened, with a rusty, coppery tint along the covered edge. Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is safe to watch with just your eyes. Binoculars or a small telescope can give you a closer view of Earth's curved shadow moving across the Moon.

Our tips for shooting this month's astro events

My colleague and experienced astrophotographer, Jamie Carter, has gone into detail on how to photograph all of August's stellar events. Be sure to head here next if you're serious about getting your pictures right on the night.

And don't head off to your astro shoot without first confirming you have the right gear. Our guides to the best cameras for astrophotography and the best astrophotography filters will help you decide.

I had to embark on several minutes of Google sleuthing last week to find out that the bright “star” I was looking at just after sunset was actually Venus – but an upcoming full-frame camera won’t just photograph the stars, but ID and track them too. The ArcBlue C24 is a full-frame astrophotography system that mixes a mirrorless camera with an integrated tracker together with the features of a smart telescope.

Smart telescopes help tell astro-beginners what they are looking at in the night sky, but lack the image prowess of a full-frame camera. The ArcBlue C24 aims to fix that by using a full-frame 24MP Sony sensor combined with a star tracker.

But the ArcBlue C24’s screen that helps not only ID but follow celestial objects across the night sky isn’t the only unusual feature about the camera’s screen. The screen can actually detach from the camera using a magnetic mount system. That allows creators to see the shots and browse the data without bumping the camera as it records – or tying up a smartphone with an app – as well as serving as a wireless remote control.

ArcBlue says that current deepsky setups typically require at least eight different devices and cables for what the C24 accomplishes in four devices and two cables. The camera is built for sitting inside a Pulsar Tri-Axis Harmonic Equatorial Mount – the astrophotography accessory that counteracts the rotation of the Earth for sharp long-exposure shots of the stars. A camera angle adjuster and a counterweight battery complete the setup.

Built-in storage and in-camera HDR stacking also help reduce the number of gadgets required.

The upcoming camera, however, is built for more than simplifying complex astrophotography setups. The 24MP full-frame Sony sensor can also capture in-camera HDR shots that take the sensor from a 14 EV dynamic range to a 29 EV dynamic range.

The camera’s dynamic range speaks to where the idea for the C24 came from. In a blog post, the start-up behind the camera explained that the C42 was built for “the worst lighting test you can give a camera:” a solar eclipse. The camera’s prototype dates back to 2015 and was used to photograph the eclipse in the US in 2017.

The camera’s sensor also has built-in cooling, as long exposures can introduce noise by overheating the sensor. The camera’s equatorial mount is designed to take sharp photos of stars in exposures as long as ten minutes, so cooling is a key feature for cleaner images.

The mirrorless camera is built with an interchangeable face plate system, which means the camera can be modified to support a variety of existing mirrorless lenses and telescopes. The camera will be available in versions to support Sony E, Canon EF, Nikon Z lenses and M68 telescope threads, while standard third-party adapters will open the camera up to lenses from other systems.

The start-up says that the support for existing lenses and telescopes works for ultra-wide astrophotography landscapes to telescope shots of distant celestial objects. While the C24 is designed to use fewer pieces than the standard deep astrophotography setups, the system can also be customized, including skipping the equatorial mount for a lighter nightscape kit.

The ArcBlue C24 was initially teased at the National Association of Broadcasters Show (NAB) in April 2026, but the company is now hinting on social media that the C24 is coming “soon” to Kickstarter.

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3200MP, 500,000+ galaxies and 50,000+ stars: These are the numbers from the latest image coming from the world’s largest camera at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. And yet, researchers say the latest image from the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is just the beginning of what the record-breaking night sky camera could achieve.

The National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab, has released a new image of the COSMOS Field, one of the most observed sections of the sky, thanks to its relatively little interference from the light and dust of the Milky Way.

Captured by the LSST Camera, researchers say the shot offers a relatively clear view beyond the Milky Way, with only a small handful of Milky Way stars in the foreground. The image, researchers say, contains a myriad of different galaxies, from spirals to elliptical to even merging galaxies and distant red galaxies. The image covers about one sixth of the visible night sky in the southern hemisphere.

The photograph is constructed from a series of hundreds of separate views from LSST, which at more than three tons and roughly the size of a small car, is the world’s largest camera. The images were captured between April 2025 and January 2026, when the LSST camera was still in its testing phase.

The LSST’s decade-long survey of the night sky only began earlier this summer, and researchers suggest that the newest image is just a hint of what’s to come. The image was released to celebrate the first phase of Rubin’s Data Preview 2.

“The COSMOS deep image is just the beginning for Rubin in this region,” said Rubin Observatory Director at NSF NoirLab Bob Blum. Repeated visits to the field over the next few years will demonstrate the power of our survey design for discovery by providing our science community with a huge number of transient and variable objects like supernovae and other explosive transients for follow-up and detailed study.”

The LSST camera uses mirrors and three lenses to capture views of the night sky on a 3200MP sensor. NoirLab says that to get the same resolution from a smartphone camera, you’d need about 260 of them. The camera weighs about 6,600 lbs / 3,000 kg – even the filters for the camera are about 90 pounds / 40 kg.

While the LSST’s decade-long survey of the night sky has only just begun, early images are available to explore (and pixel peep) in the Vera C Rubin Skyviewer app.

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The brevity of a total solar eclipse makes it unlike any other photographic subject. You can photograph wildlife every weekend, revisit a landscape whenever you want and take hundreds of attempts at deep-sky astrophotography.

A total solar eclipse offers no such luxury. The event is geographically very specific, it unfolds quickly, and the most spectacular phase lasts only a few minutes or even seconds.

That rarity is what makes eclipse photography so compelling. During totality, when the moon completely covers the sun, daylight fades to twilight, the temperature drops, shadows become strangely sharp and the solar corona emerges around the silhouette of the moon.

The challenge is to come home with memorable images without spending the entire brief event staring at the back of a camera. It’s a challenge many fail at because they don’t make decisions or prepare in advance.

Photographing a total solar eclipse: Why it’s so special

If you want to image a total solar eclipse, you must be within the narrow path of totality – the moon’s central shadow – which on 12 August 2026 is about 180 miles wide and will move over eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain. Beyond, many other places in the UK, Europe and North America will see a partial solar eclipse.

Once you’re in place, photographing a total solar eclipse requires two very different approaches. During the initial and following partial phases, the sun remains intensely bright and must be photographed through a certified solar filter.

During the brief totality, that filter must be removed because the faint corona is only visible when the sun is completely covered.

The transition between those two states happens remarkably quickly. For most photographers, the challenge is knowing exactly what to do and when to do it, while the clock is ticking.

This isn't about expensive gear. A photographer with modest kit who knows exactly what images they want, has rehearsed in advance and has read Alan Dyer’s brilliant How to Capture the Coming Solar Eclipses book will typically outperform someone with expensive gear they've never tested. Don’t be in that second group!

Photographing a total solar eclipse: Staying safe

Before even thinking about cameras and lenses, it's essential to understand eclipse safety. Whenever any portion of the sun is visible – even 1% – you must use proper solar protection for both your camera and your eyes.

For visual observing, wear eclipse glasses that comply with the ISO 12312-2 standard. For photography, use a secure front-mounted solar filter designed specifically for solar imaging.

The solar filter must be as close to the sun as possible in any setup. Never look through an optical viewfinder at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed sun. Use Live View or an electronic viewfinder instead (doing so also helps you manually focus for a sharp image).

When photographing a total solar eclipse, you put a filter on during all partial phases and take it off only during totality. After totality ends, you put the filter back on immediately.

It’s worth noting here that the partial phases on either side are not rare and can be imaged from hundreds of miles away. You’ve traveled to the path of totality to experience and photograph totality – that’s the shot. How you take that shot, and with what, however, is up for grabs.

Photographing a total solar eclipse: Composition

Do you want a close-up of the eclipsed sun or an image of it set against a landscape? One of the biggest mistakes that first-time eclipse photographers make is unthinkingly focusing exclusively on the sun.

They see a beautiful image of the solar corona during totality and want to replicate it. In some ways, it’s classic “Instagram gaze” – a copycat composition that uses an existing image as a template rather than responding freshly to the scene in front of you.

There’s nothing wrong with this, mostly because the eclipsed sun is unique – you’ll likely capture loops of red plasma leaping from the surface of the sun around the silhouette of the moon, sparkling Baily’s beads of sunlight and a tenuous corona that is always unique.

However, it’s more of a science image. Is that what you’re after? If so, go for it. Or you could ask what the place you’re in is actually offering you – and that goes double for the 2026 total solar eclipse.

Close-up images of the corona are spectacular, but the eclipse transforms the entire landscape. Your surroundings, the changing light and the reactions of observers around you tell a more complete story. You can choose one approach – or you can attempt both.

Photographing a total solar eclipse: Equipment

For detailed solar images, a DSLR or mirrorless camera paired with a telephoto lens works best. A camera phone can record the experience, particularly during totality, but it will not give you close-up images of the sun.

Think about your goals before eclipse day. Broadly speaking, there are a handful of approaches:

• Telephoto photography of the partially and totally eclipsed sun and corona on a tripod (400-600mm lens).
• Telephoto photography of the partially and totally eclipsed sun and corona using a solar tracker on a tripod (800mm lens).
• Wide-angle images showing the landscape during totality (wide-angle lens / GoPro / smartphone) on a tripod or handheld.
• Documentary-style handheld photographs capturing people experiencing the event (smartphone)

Many experienced eclipse photographers run two cameras: one with a long lens and one with a wide-angle lens. Consider which type of image will be most meaningful to you.

Photographing a total solar eclipse: Smartphone

Look at the image above, taken from a cruise ship in 2023. It includes the ship, the people on it and the eclipse. It’s a unique image that can never be replicated – and it was taken using an iPhone.

A smartphone can do a lot during an eclipse, capturing documentary-style photographs of people wearing eclipse glasses during the partial phases, as well as a silhouette of a loved one staring skyward during totality.

In the final minutes before totality, search for crescent-shaped projections beneath trees, where gaps in the leaves act like thousands of tiny pinhole cameras.

A good way to use it is to engage the RAW or ProRAW mode, if your phone offers it, and switch off the flash (unless you want to annoy everyone). Just before totality, focus on something in the distance by touching it on your camera, then lock the focus. For polish, take the brightness slider down a touch.

Now you’re ready to take lots of wide-angle images in the first few seconds of totality – before putting your smartphone in your pocket so you can just enjoy the remaining seconds.

If possible, mount the phone on a small tripod and consider using hands-free time-lapse or video modes. Note that the super-wide lens on your smartphone is much less sensitive than the main lens.

Photographing a solar eclipse: Settings

If you’re using a telephoto lens, you need to practice focusing in advance. Autofocus can struggle with a filtered sun, so manual focus is usually the safest option.

Before eclipse day, practice taking images of the sun through your solar filter. That way, you’ve nailed the partial phases before you even get to the path of totality. Focus carefully on the sun’s edge and then leave focus untouched. You could even consider using masking tape to keep the lens in place.

It’s important to practice because solar filters differ in how much light they let through, so exposure lengths vary from around 1/25 sec for Thousand Oaks SolarLite filters (which give the sun an orangey look) and ND 1,000,000 filters, and 1/500-1/1000 sec for Baader AstroSolar filters (which give the sun a whitish look).

Exposure settings vary depending on the filter used, but a useful starting point during the partial and total phases is ISO200 and an aperture of f/8.

Review your images and adjust as needed. The goal is to preserve detail in the solar crescent without clipping highlights. Some photographers take an image of the partially eclipsed sun every five minutes so they can assemble a composite later (above).

Photographing a total solar eclipse: Settings

As a 99.99% partial eclipse transitions to totality, everything changes. Light levels plunge in seconds, a diamond ring hangs around the moon and tiny Baily’s beads of sunlight dance on the limb.

Seconds later, the corona can be seen spraying into space. It spans a huge brightness range, from the brilliant inner corona to faint outer streamers extending far from the sun.

There is no one perfect image of the solar corona – there are dozens of different exposures that will create a different image. Eclipse photographers tend to take hundreds of photos to process, blend and stack to create composite images that try to show as much of the corona as possible.

For that reason, exposure bracketing is highly recommended. If you capture a sequence of images ranging from fast shutter speeds (such as 1/1000 sec) to slower exposures (around 1 second), you’ll have a good chance of recording both fine detail and the outer corona.

For example, 1/1000 sec will get you a nice image of the bright diamond ring, but 0.5-1 seconds is how to get a big corona seconds later. A few minutes later, totality will end with a second diamond ring.

Exposures vary. The above image from Alan Dyer of the end of totality as the second diamond ring emerges is a composite of two images taken seconds apart – a 1/15 sec exposure for the corona and a 1/1000 sec exposure for the prominences and chromosphere.

It was taken with a small refractor telescope and a Canon EOS 6D Mark II camera. In this case, a polar-aligned equatorial mount was used so the camera was tracking the sky.

Consider programming an exposure sequence, or using bracketing, so that the camera works for you and makes everything as simple as possible.

When the first bright point of sunlight reappears, totality is over. Replace the solar filter immediately before continuing to photograph the remaining partial phases.

Photographing a total solar eclipse: The best approach

A total solar eclipse is such a dynamic, impressive and otherworldly experience. Instead of obsessing over the perfect image, make a plan that enables you record the event while staying present.

Prepare your equipment, rehearse your workflow and understand exactly when to remove and replace your solar filter. Then, when totality arrives, trust your preparation and take a moment to enjoy what is happening above you.

The best eclipse photograph is often not technically brilliant, but merely the one that forever reminds you of the very short time you had in front of one of nature’s most extraordinary spectacles.

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If you're photographing the eclipse, make sure you're using the best solar filters for your camera. For astro shooting, check out the best cameras for astrophotography, the best lenses for astrophotography and the best star tracker camera mounts.

August 2026 is one of the most event-packed months of the year for astrophotographers — and perhaps the busiest for years. On August 12, it not only delivers a rare total solar eclipse across parts of the Northern Hemisphere, but also a partial solar eclipse that’s deep across Europe and shallow in parts of North America. Just hours later, overnight on 12-13 August, comes the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, the best display of “shooting stars” in 2026. Add Venus, which in mid-month begins to shrink to a crescent as it approaches Earth — getting brighter as it does — and a partial lunar eclipse late in the month, and August becomes a showcase of multiple types of astronomical targets.

Here’s everything you need to know about astrophotography in August 2026:

Read: 10 must-shoot events for astrophotographers in 2026

Wednesday, August 12: Total solar eclipse

The standout astrophotography event of 2026 is a total solar eclipse that sweeps across eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain. For those within the 180-mile-wide path of totality, this is a rare opportunity to photograph one of nature’s most dramatic spectacles.

Outside the path, a deep partial solar eclipse will be seen shortly before sunset across Europe. In North America, northeastern U.S. states and Canada will see a small eclipse in mid-afternoon.

Preparation is everything. You must use a solar filter for all partial phases, removing it only during totality itself if you’re in the path. A focal length of 400-800mm will capture the sun’s corona in detail, though wider lenses can be used for landscape compositions showing the darkened sky and horizon glow. Exposure bracketing is critical, as the corona spans a huge range of brightness. Practise beforehand — this is not an event to improvise.

Read: Start planning for the next solar eclipse – the must-photograph astro event of 2026

August 12-13: Perseid meteor shower

The Perseids peak on the night after the eclipse — a coincidence that effectively guarantees a moonless night sky perfect for meteor photography. Under dark skies, rates can reach 80–100 meteors per hour. As always with attempts to capture fleeting meteors, the best strategy is “set and forget.” Use a wide-angle lens (14-24mm), a fast aperture (f/2-f/2.8), ISO 800-1600 and exposures of 20-30 seconds. Meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. Shoot continuously for several hours, and you’ve got a great chance of catching a few streaking through a frame.

Read: How to photograph the stunning Perseid meteor shower

August 15: Dark sky window

The last quarter moon — rising late at night — on August 6 kicks off a dark-sky period ideal for deep-sky imaging. With no moonlight to interfere, this is one of the final opportunities of the year to photograph the Milky Way’s core in the evening sky.

Look south after dark to capture the dense star clouds and dust lanes of the Milky Way flowing through the vast Summer Triangle asterism. Use a wide-angle lens and exposures of 10-20 seconds at ISO 800-3200, taking care to keep stars sharp. For greater detail, use a star tracker to extend exposure times. This is also a good time to experiment with panoramas or vertical compositions — but also think about composition, making sure there’s more in your image than just the Milky Way.

Read: The best star tracker camera mounts

August 15: Venus at greatest elongation

Venus reaches its greatest eastern elongation, shining brilliantly in the western sky after sunset. At nearly 48 degrees from the sun, it will be prominent as the “Evening Star.” It also becomes an ideal target for a close-up because it is now half-lit (as an inner planet, it has phases like the moon) and is becoming more of a crescent each night, even as its disk grows larger as it gets closer to Earth. This kind of image demands a refractor or Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope — ideally with a high focal length of about 1,000mm — and high magnification. Because of its brightness, Venus can be captured even before the sky fully darkens, allowing for more creative foreground work.

Read: The best cameras for astrophotography

August 27-28: Partial lunar eclipse

A solar eclipse also comes with a lunar eclipse in tow — sometimes before, sometimes after. This deep partial lunar eclipse will see 96% of the full moon enter Earth’s shadow, with cameras capturing a rusty, reddish color on the lunar surface near the peak. North and South America will get the best views, while Europe will see the peak of the eclipse in the hours before sunrise. A telephoto lens (300-600mm) will reveal detail, while shorter focal lengths can be used for creative compositions. Unlike a total lunar eclipse, part of the moon will remain brightly lit, so exposure balancing is important. Shoot in RAW and bracket exposures to retain both the shadowed and illuminated regions.

Read: How to photograph the Blood Moon

Astrophotography shot of the month: Milky Way and Perseids under a dark sky

While the total solar eclipse is the headline event, the Perseid meteor shower offers the most accessible and repeatable opportunity for astrophotographers. With a new moon ensuring dark skies, this year’s display is perfectly timed not only to catch meteors, but to do so with the Milky Way in the background. Find a location far from light pollution, point the camera south and use continuous shooting to keep it running for hours. The more frames you capture, the higher your chances of recording multiple meteors. However, always add a foreground element — a tree, a building or a landscape feature — to create interest, scouting a location in daylight if you can.

Read more:

• Astrophotography tools: the best camera, lenses and gear

• The best lenses for astrophotography

• The best star tracker camera mounts

I have photographed solar eclipses seven times over the last 47 years, and in the first part of this series I described my first efforts in the pre-internet era – and the hard lessons that you learn when chasing the shadow of an eclipse. The most important one is that even with the best planning, you can never to be certain to avoid clouds obliterating your view!

In this second installment, we head to Vizcaíno Desert and the Caribbean for my next experiences of photographing solar eclipses…

My third solar eclipse: May 10, 1994

We again made the trek from south-west Canada to Mexico’s Baja (where I had seen my second total solar eclipse in 1991) peninsula by car. This time it was for an annular eclipse.

When the Earth is closest to the sun and the moon is farthest from the Earth, the Moon is not visually big enough to block the sun. Thus you get an annular eclipse or the “Ring of Fire”, a bright ring of sunlight visible around the Moon.

Again, we made no particular plans, or preparations (other than to take the camera gear). With stops in Oregon, California, as well as at Ensenada and Guerro Negro in the Baja. We simply pickup up motels as we got to the end of each day’s drive.

On the morning of the eclipse, we drove south, into the desert, hoping to go to El Arco, which was on the centre line. But the road was closed and so we decided to stop, near the turnoff, where we found two chaps from Ontario, California all set up and ready. Because we were off the center line, but still in the path, the moon was not centred over the sun and the ring was lopsided. But the seeing was good, even if the day was unbearably hot.

My fourth solar eclipse: February 26, 1998

I’d previously been to Venezuela twice, and before Hugo Chavez it was a wonderful country. The ‘98 Eclipse was going to go through Maracaibo, in western Venezuela, so it seemed like the reasonable destination. After talking about my plans with one of my customers, he offered that his wife was from Maracaibo, and that he’d bring her in for a chat about the town. She told me that there you judged a hotel not by its facilities, but by the number of locks on doors and the quality of the bars of the windows. She pointed out that the area was rife with gangs, and tourists in rented cars were prime targets. I changed my plans.

In the end, I booked a Caribbean cruise. The cruise line had two meteorologists on board, and as with land eclipses, mobility is the key. Thus, our ship sailed all night to find a hole in the clouds. It worked, and we had a fabulous view from somewhere near Curaçao. That said, I’m not sure I’d do it again. The ten-day cruise was lovely and we got to visit much of the Caribbean. The viewing from the stern was terrific, but photography from aboard ship, even with the shorter, 500mm lens was not as satisfactory as one would hope. Even in calm seas and with the stabilizers out, the ship moves constantly. With an f/8 aperture and Kodachrome 64 slide film, shutter speeds were limited, so my photos were all a bit blurry.

One fun thing was the discovery that the holes in my wife’s straw sun-hat made great pinhole lenses, casting lovely images of the partial phases on her neck and the deck. If you’ve not got a wife with a straw hat, an old colander will do.

If you’ve ever experienced the air at minus 45, you know that if it’s not overcast the seeing is startlingly clear. The eclipse on March 9 the year before had been visible in Siberia, when it was still winter. One chap aboard ship had been there and “Eclipse Chic” is to wear a T-shirt from your previous eclipse... but in Siberia he’d not been able to buy one. So he’d had one made up, which simply read: “I was in Siberia for the last one. I earned this one!’

Remember, never get so involved in your photography, that you forget to look up. It’s what you come for. Blurry photos or not, I don’t regret a single penny spent on that trip. The cruise was worth it, and the eclipse was the icing on the cake.

The internet was beginning to influence eclipse chaser’s behavior, but aboard ship, it was irrelevant.

Four Eclipses down, three to go…

The final installment of David Young's 47-year diary of a solar eclipse photographer will be published soon

Start planning for the August 2026 solar eclipse - and don't remember to buy a solar filter for your camera

There will be tons of articles on where to see and how to photograph a solar eclipse, with the next one due on August 12. I have been chasing solar eclipses for 47 years, so I thought I'd write about what has changed over that time.

A solar eclipse is the closest thing I can think of to what some people call a “religious experience”. The sky goes dark in the middle of the day. The birds go to roost, while cows head back to their barns. The winds die down and there is a remarkable hush.

If you’re in the path of totality, you’ll get to see the sun’s corona, which is visible to us only during the few seconds or minutes of a total solar eclipse. If you’re in the path, and on high ground, you can watch the shadow of the moon race towards you, across open fields or open water, at 1,500 miles per hour.

Observers within the Moon's umbra (the darkest part of the shadow) see a total solar eclipse, while those in the penumbra see a partial solar eclipse. If the Moon is slightly farther from Earth and appears too small to cover the Sun completely, an annular eclipse occurs, leaving a bright ring of sunlight visible around the Moon.

It’s a sight like no other. I should know. I’ve now watched and photographed seven of them.

Eclipses only happen due to a quirk of nature. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but the sun is also almost exactly 400 times further away. When things line up just right, during a new moon when the sun, moon and Earth are in nearly a straight line, the moon's shadow falls on the face of the Earth.

If the moon is closer on its orbit (its perigee), it casts a bigger shadow and the eclipse lasts longer. If it is further from the Earth (its apogee), its shadow is smaller and the eclipse is shorter.

A total solar eclipse occurs about once every 18 months, but most are over water, or Siberia in winter, or over the Arctic or Antarctic or similarly hard or expensive places to get to.

Eclipses that occur over land that you can affordably get to are that not common. If you don’t want to travel, one happens over any given spot on earth every 350 to 400 years. So, all you need to do is wait… and then remember to go outside when it happens!

My first eclipse: February 26 1979

My first eclipse happened rather spontaneously. We’re talking decades before the advent of the internet, when only readers of astronomy magazines had any inkling that it was coming.

So, a week before, my then brother-in-law suggested I join a small group of 'keeners', who were going to Toppenish, Washington. I checked with my photo dealer, rented a Celestron C-90 with a solar filter and an adapter to my camera, and away we went!

We arrived in the small town of Ellensburg, Washington, late the day before, popped into a local motel and booked a room with no trouble. We dined at a local cafe that night and the waitress told us she couldn’t understand why there were so many people in town!

Mobility is key, then or now, for eclipse viewing. The morning of the eclipse, my brother-in-law and myself were racing down gravel section roads looking for holes in the cloud. We got to an intersection and stopped to consult the clouds. I chose right, while he went left. Totality was to start in less than ten minutes. I saw the eclipse, he did not.

Back then I had no idea how to use the telescope, and my tripod was not sturdy enough for it, so my photos were blurry. Totality was just 2 minutes 25 seconds. But I was hooked.

In the aftermath, I learned something rather important. Cheap Mylar filters have a blueish cast and the photos look awful. Spend a little extra coin and get filters with a golden tone. It’s not the real color, either, but it's much more pleasing.

I had a pair of electronics stores to run, and thus neither the time nor budget to gallivant around the world after eclipses. So I had to wait 12 years.

My second solar eclipse: July 11 1991

After a 12-year wait, we drove from southern British Columbia to San Jose Del Cabo, in Mexico’s Baja – a 5,000-mile round trip.

This was “The Big One”, the longest totality for some 300 years, either side of now. At its maximum eclipse, some distance further south, totality was a full 6 minutes 53 seconds, of which we got to see 6 minutes and 47 seconds from San Jose del Cabo.

A couple of evenings prior to the eclipse, we met a lady in the lobby of our hotel who taught English and wanted to chat – most likely to improve her own English. The Mexican government had worried about people damaging their eyes, watching the eclipse without proper eye protection.

So they were setting up solar filter-equipped TV cameras all along the path, and would broadcast it live over and over, as the shadow moved down the coast.

I asked her if she was going to watch the eclipse on TV, but she told me that she was going to watch it in the time-honored Mexican way. “And what is that?” I asked. “From under the bed!” she replied.

On the morning of the eclipse was 100% cloud cover. Many folks opted to drive an hour north, to Santiago, hoping they’d gain an extra seven seconds of totality, and that the skies it would be clearer inland.

We opted to set up on the grounds of a condo where some of our group were staying. We were really roughing it, as we had to suffer being on a cool, manicured lawn, 20 feet from the whirlpool, 30 feet from the swimming pool, 50 feet from the ocean and 100 feet from the bar. And we had lots of company!

The best bit was that roughly 30 minutes before totality, the clouds vanished and everyone had a spectacular view. Still we suffered through with only 6 minutes and 45 seconds of umbral time. Life was rough!

In contrast, many Americans flew to Hawaii, as it was also on the center-line. But Hawaii had severe clouds and – unless you were one of the exalted few allowed above the clouds, on the grounds of the telescopes atop Mauna Kea – nobody saw a thing!

A PBS documentary of the Hawaiian version of the 1991 eclipse interviewed one family who could not find accommodation, so flew into Honolulu, stayed awake for 36 hours and flew home. All without seeing the eclipse! Getting clouded out is a risk that all eclipse chasers take.

What surprised me more than anything else was that, after totality ended, even though the partial phases still had an hour or more to go, within minutes the people cleared out and the town was empty. You could have shot a cannon down the main street and not hit a soul. Absolutely amazing!

So, two eclipses down and five to go. In 1998 the internet was in its infancy, with dial-up modems and slow connections, having very little influence on people’s lives. Cellphones would not become mainstream for another three to five years. But before long, the internet would take hold of the world – and everything would change…

The next installment of David Young's 47-year diary of a solar eclipse photographer will be published soon

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Beta Pictoris, located about 63 light-years away from Earth, is one of the most photographed planetary systems outside of our own – yet despite all the data coming from that part of the sky, a faint planet remained hidden. After researchers noted a bright spot in new images, the newly discovered planet was spotted in images dating back over 11 years.

“We weren’t looking for a new planet, explained lead researcher Aidan Gibbs. “We were trying to understand one we already knew existed. Then, this telltale signal appeared in the data where we didn’t expect it.”

Researchers were looking at Beta Pictoris b with the James Webb Telescope’s Near InfraRed Spectrograph when they spotted another bright spot in the image where they had expected to see dust: a planet now named Beta Pictoris d.

When researchers went back over older images, they spotted evidence of the planet in images that had been taken more than a decade ago.

Beta Pictoris d is estimated to be about twice the mass of Jupiter, so why is the newly discovered planet so good at playing hide and seek? Beta Pictoris d is very dim. Researchers believe it’s one of the dimmest exoplanets ever to be photographed from Earth. The planet also has the widest known orbit in the system compared to the other two known planets, which puts it just inside the system’s debris disk.

Using Webb, the researchers were able to capture a near-infrared spectrograph and a traditional image of the discovery.

"There was an unexpected bright source of light within the Integral Field Unit imaging, but we've learned not to trust bright blobs in images," Jean-Baptiste Ruffio, a principal investigator of the Webb Observations and research scientist at the University of California, San Diego, said. “They can be instrumental artifacts or other structures in the debris disk. By obtaining a spectrum at the same time as the image, we were able to quickly confirm our suspicions.”

A separate study using the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope confirmed the planet’s existence, noting that Beta Pictoris d is 100 times fainter than the first planet discovered in the same system.

The ESO research team also combed through past data, finding faint evidence of Beta Pictoris d hidden in the glare of Beta Pictoris b, dating back 11 years

“Planet d, it seems, has been playing a game of hide-and-seek with us for over a decade and only now can we say ‘found you,’” said Jaybe Bixby study co-author and astronomer at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

In traditional imaging, a planet must be bright enough not to be overshadowed by the brightness of any neighboring objects, and the brightness of Beta Pictoris b meant the neighboring planet remained undetected for several years.

While the discovery of Beta Pictoris d is new, researchers had their suspicions – the mass and shape help explain the shape of Beta Pictoris’ debris disk.

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This photograph, Galaxy on the Rise, was captured in Tenerife, the Canary Islands, where the photographer spent nearly four hours searching for a hidden cave that proved remarkably difficult to find.

"I'm always drawn to locations that feel unique and relatively undiscovered, and this cave was a perfect example," says astrophotographer Anastasia Gulova, reflecting on the image that has now been selected for Capture the Atlas 2026 Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection.

The search became even more demanding due to intense heat and powerful winds, which pushed the photographer against the surrounding rocks. Almost abandoning the attempt, Gulova finally located the cave that would become the foreground for one of her most memorable Milky Way images.

How 'Galaxy on the Rise' was captured

Gear: Canon EOS RP Astro-modified (for sky), Canon EOS R5 (for foreground), Tamron 35mm f/1.4 SP Di USD, Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM

Accessories: Leofoto Ranger, Sky Watcher Sky Adventurer Pro 2i, VF foto white mist filter

Exposure: Sky: Pano 1 row x 6 panels x 4 frames at 60sec, 35mm, f/1.8, ISO 800; Foreground: Pano 1 row x 6 panels at 60sec, 16mm, f/4, ISO 100 (focus stacking + bracketing)

"The conditions made the process demanding," Gulova explains. "Intense heat combined with powerful winds made movement difficult, at times pushing me against sharp rocks.

"After nearly giving up and heading back, I finally came across the cave, a moment that made the entire search worthwhile.

"Capturing the image proved just as challenging. Composing and shooting the panoramic foreground required careful positioning, while properly illuminating the upper section of the cave was particularly difficult.

"To manage this, I used focus stacking across different planes, including the upper edge, the horizon and the lower foreground, all in near-total darkness, where the brief blue hour offered little assistance.

"With the Milky Way sitting low on the horizon, bringing out its color and detail required additional effort in both capture and processing.

"In the end, the result reflects not only the scene itself, but also the persistence and experience behind it, making it especially meaningful."

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Images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed new secrets about a nearby galaxy, leaving European Space Agency (ESA) astronomers with all sorts of questions about its mesmerizing structure and glistening star formations.

Centaurus A (also known as NGC 5128) is located 11 million light-years away from Earth and has been well documented by scientists since its discovery in 1826. However, vibrant cosmic dust shrouding the galaxy’s central region made it difficult to observe, and even the Hubble Space Telescope couldn’t provide detailed enough images.

But unlike Hubble, JWST features a Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) that cuts through the hazy space gases, which the ESA says exposes the galaxy’s inner workings and a prime case of “galactic archaeology”.

Most notable to the astronomers is the “warped” parallelogram-like band of light peppered with stars stretching across the center of NGC 5128, while wisps of material flow outward like clouds.

This formation was revealed by combining images from the MIRI with those captured by the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), with the ESA thinking it could have been the result of a cosmic collision with another galaxy billions of years ago.

The astronomers also used James Webb’s spectroscopy instruments to determine how the black hole at the center of Centaurus A influences the galaxy as a whole. While the researchers are certain it can trigger new star formation by compressing gas, and also limit this by pushing cosmic material away, the “complex” answers continue to elude them.

Even though the ESA astronomers have been left scratching their heads, they’ve said that the new images have enabled them to trace dust, resolve millions of stars and reveal the motion of gases in unprecedented detail, transforming Centaurus A into a “vivid record of cosmic history”.

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Instead of relying solely on billion-dollar space telescopes, NASA should also consider using pictures taken by astronauts with commercial handheld cameras to study the cosmos. That’s what astronomers at Tokyo City University, Japan, have suggested in a new research paper.

The paper has revealed how an image taken by one of the astronauts during the recent Artemis II lunar mission has improved understanding of the F corona – scattered light from cosmic dust forming part of the outermost layer of the Sun's atmosphere.

The image was taken on day 6 of the lunar mission as the astronauts witnessed a total solar eclipse from the far side of the Moon. We don’t know which astronaut pressed the shutter, but we do know, thanks to EXIF data, that they used a Nikon Z9 and Nikkor 35mm f/2D lens, with settings: 2secs at f/2, ISO 1600.

According to the Japanese astronomers, the F corona is a faint spreading structure that can be seen in the image surrounding the Moon, which is obscuring the Sun, and special conditions such as a total solar eclipse are required for observation.

By analyzing the image, the astronomers deduced that the extent to which the F corona is distributed in the north-south direction is greater than scientific models have previously predicted, revealing new understanding of the origin and evolution of materials within the solar system.

The Tokyo-based researchers have said the study represents a pivotal intersection of science and human activity, as “a single photograph taken by a person in space” has highlighted a potentially crucial role astronauts using handheld cameras could play in the future of astronomy.

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European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Sophie Adenot has shared the latest of the incredible images she’s captured from aboard the International Space Station (ISS), this time treating us to a mesmerizing shot of the aurora borealis as it glistened over Earth.

Adenot is part of the Epsilon mission crew, who are expected to remain in orbit for around nine months conducting microgravity research, and this new image was captured on day 127 (orbit 1,968) some 250 miles above the planet.

“That aurora was absolutely spectacular… shimmering and dancing beneath us, stretching as far as the eye could see, and so intense it lit up the Station in shades of green,” said Adenot. “Moments like these never get old up here; the whole crew suddenly find themselves vying for a good spot at a window!”

An aurora occurs when electrically charged particles from the Sun collide with gases in Earth’s upper atmosphere, causing atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen to glow vibrantly.

Adenot said she’s seen several since the mission began, but this one was “on a completely different level”, requiring different camera settings than usual. To capture the shot, she set her trusty Nikon Z9 to 1/4 sec, f/1.4 and ISO8000.

The astronaut has been documenting the mission with camera in hand since the beginning and has built out an amazing portfolio.

On day 103 (orbit 1,598) she snapped an awesome image of Mt. Vesuvius – the volcano which destroyed the Roman city of Pompeii – and Mt. Etna, an active stratovolcano on the island of Sicily, while smoke billowed from its crater.

With roughly a month left of the Epsilon mission, I’m sure we can expect more fascinating images from her before the space odyssey comes to an end.

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Photographers may have more than fireworks to capture this Fourth of July weekend, as several sun flares could mean a natural night sky light show over the next few days. Heightened solar activity could increase the odds of seeing the aurora farther south than usual over the weekend.

The sun emitted several flares over a 24-hour period on June 30. Those flares could potentially spark an aurora this weekend, as early as tonight, with heightened chances for an aurora continuing into the weekend.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s three-day geomagnetic forecast predicts that the highest levels of activity could potentially hit a KP6, a moderate G2-level storm, around 18:00 ET today. The levels remain above a KP4 for more than 24 hours, however.

NOAA, however, notes that this particular solar activity makes the forecast unpredictable, and the timing could come earlier or later than expected. The sun unleashed 10 flares over a 24-hour period, and how those flares interact makes the aurora even more challenging to predict than usual.

The organization notes that there is “some uncertainty” on the timing due to that unpredictability – if the solar activity hits during daylight hours, the aurora would not be visible.

With the timing uncertain, photographers should check NOAA’s short-term forecast – which tends to be more accurate than the three-day forecast – before losing sleep.

If the conditions remain favorable, northern US states and Canada could see some aurora activity:

The UK's MET Office is also monitoring the activity and notes a potential aurora, but says that "any aurora is likely to be restricted to the northern parts of the UK and similar latitudes."

Thankfully, photographing the aurora is a little like photographing a fireworks show: Bring a tripod and prepare to use slower shutter speeds.

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NASA’s deep space images often feel like both science and art. But NASA’s latest images are art in more ways than one: they come with sound. NASA recently released a set of new images that are impressive on their own, but come accompanied by music created from scientific data.

NASA’s sonigications translate different data points from the photographs into different musical elements. The brightness of the image, for example, turns into volume, creating a crescendo at the brightest points of the photograph.

NASA used different scans, such as left to right and a clockwise circle, along with using different instruments to represent different data. In one sonification of the Milky Way cluster NGC3603 for example, the data that comes from Chandra’s X-ray observations becomes piano notes, while the Hubble data becomes an acoustic guitar.

A photo that creates a song is unusual in itself, but the set of images also features red, white, and blue galaxies and nebulae as NASA’s nod to America’s 250th birthday this Fourth of July. That seems extra appropriate, because what fireworks show is complete without sound?

Those colors, however, aren’t just patriotic but represent different visual data and hint at where that image came from. Chandra’s x-ray technology tends to render blues, purples, and whites. Layering those images with visible light, infrared, and ultraviolet photographs from additional space telescopes, like Hubble and James Webb, offers both more colors and a more complete dataset.

The cluster of Milky Way stars known as the nebula NGC 3603 looks almost like an exploded firework. NASA says the bright red cluster of stars is revealed by mixing data from Chandra with images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The new collection also features the galaxy NCG 4736 or Messier 94, a shot that mixes images from Chandra with photos from astrophotographers on the ground using telescopes. The combination shows off the galaxy’s inner starburst ring, where new stars are forming.

The blue inside the final image collection comes from Hubble data on a distant cluster of galaxies known as ZwCl 0024+1652, while data from Chandra’s X-ray data adds the red superheated gas to the image.

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The world’s largest camera was built for scientific discovery, but as the Vera C. Robin Observatory begins its decade-long survey of the night sky, the researchers are calling the work both scientific and a “blockbuster movie of the Universe.”

The Vera C. Rubin’s record-breaking size and resolution are the result of two decades of research and engineering, but on June 30, the camera’s ten-year survey of the night sky officially began.

The ultra-high definition, ultrawide-angle camera has begun creating a time-lapse of the night sky, which researchers expect will continue for a decade. “Today, we begin filming the greatest cosmic movie ever made,” said Brian Stone, the Chief of Staff, currently performing the duties of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Director.

Deputy Director of Rubin Operations for SLAC echoed a similar theme of the observatory’s impact on both science and technology. “It’s taken 20 years of hard science, engineering, and more to get to the point where we can call ‘action’ as we start rolling on this blockbuster movie of the Universe,” Marshal said. “Millions of alerts in just the last couple of months show that Rubin is up and running as a discovery machine. Now we’re putting it all together.”

Located on a mountain in Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is operated by the NSF’s NOIRLab and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory took its first 3,200 megapixel photograph of the universe last June as part of the initial testing, but now the massive 6,200-pound / 2800 kg camera has officially begun its ten-year time-lapse of the night sky.

NOIRLab calls the observatory “the most powerful Solar System discovery machine ever built.” The Legacy of Time and Space Survey’s anticipated scientific contributions stem from both the tech behind the camera and the camera’s ten-year survey that could map out changes in the night sky over the next decade.

The observatory is now capturing one photo of the southern sky about every 40 seconds overnight. While the survey will pause for unfavorable conditions such as cloud cover, the system is expected to take around a thousand images every night for the next ten years. That’s about ten terabytes of data every night in operation.

Researchers believe that the camera’s high resolution and ultra-wide lens will uncover details about the universe not previously observed by earlier technology. During just the month and a half of early surveys to prep for the decade-long survey, researchers noted that Rubin had spotted more than 11,000 asteroids that had never been spotted before.

Software will help sift through the massive amounts of data, with researchers estimating that the system could send as many as seven million alerts each night.

The observatory’s early images are available to explore online.

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July 2026 is a month of contrasts for astrophotographers in the Northern Hemisphere. On one hand, nights are short, compressed into a narrow window between lingering twilight and early dawn. On the other hand, what darkness remains is hard to resist. This is peak season for the Milky Way’s brightest region and the last chance to image Jupiter in evening twilight. Add a well-timed new moon, a photogenic full ‘Buck Moon’ and a meteor shower, and July becomes less about quantity of darkness and more about timing. Here’s everything you need to know about astrophotography in July 2026:

Read: 10 must-shoot events for astrophotographers in 2026

July 11: Moon and Pleiades

If you can get up an hour before sunrise and you have a clear east-northeastern horizon, look for a 15%-illuminated waning crescent moon curled around the Pleiades open cluster (M45), with Mars and orangey red supergiant star Aldebaran below.

Read: When to photograph the moon

July 11-12: Manhattanhenge

July’s best celestial photography opportunities are not confined to dark skies. Twice each year, three weeks before and after the summer solstice, Manhattanhenge occurs in New York City. On both evenings this weekend, the setting sun will align perfectly with Manhattan’s grid of streets and be framed by the borough’s skyscrapers. On 11 July, the entire disk of the sun will appear on the horizon between the skyscrapers, while on 12 July, it will be possible to capture the “kiss the grid” effect, with half the sun appearing below the horizon line as it sets directly within Manhattan’s grid. For photographers, this is about geometry and timing. Use a long lens (200mm or more) to compress the scene and position yourself along major streets such as 42nd or 34th. Arrive early, as crowds gather quickly. Bracket your shots to retain detail in both the sunlit sky and the shadowed foreground. The definitive source for details about Manhattanhenge is New York’s American Museum of Natural History.

Read How to photograph Manhattanhenge

July 17-18: Dark sky window

Night is short enough in July without having to contend with a bright moon. So keep your attempts to image the Milky Way and anything in the deep sky to a few nights before and after the new moon on Tuesday, July 14. In mid-northern latitudes, the brightest part of the Milky Way becomes visible low in the southeast after dusk and climbs higher through the night. Use a wide-angle lens (14-24mm), a fast aperture (f/2.8 or thereabouts), ISO 800-3200 and exposures of 10-20 seconds to capture it, then use post-processing software to draw out detail. A star tracker will allow longer exposures and finer detail, revealing dust lanes and star clouds.

Read: How to photograph the Milky Way

July 17-18: Crescent moon returns

The nights after the new moon offer a chance to capture an ultra-thin crescent moon in the western twilight sky. On July 17, you can catch a 16%-illuminated waxing crescent moon close to Venus, with it slightly brighter and farther away from the planet on 18 July. You’ll need a clear horizon, precise timing and a tripod. Use a short telephoto lens (100–300mm) and expose for the crescent itself — Earthshine may be visible as a faint glow across the rest of the lunar disk.

Read: The best star tracker camera mounts

July 29: Full ‘Buck Moon’ rises

The time to image July’s full moon — known as the Buck Moon — is at moonrise where you are as its light passes through more of Earth’s atmosphere and takes on a warm orange hue. Scout a clear southeastern horizon and use apps like The Photographer's Ephemeris and PhotoPills to align the rising moon with foreground elements such as buildings, hills or coastlines. A telephoto lens in the 200-600mm range will exaggerate the moon’s size relative to the landscape.

Read: How to photograph the full moon

July 30-31: Delta Aquariid meteor shower peaks

The Delta Aquariids peak overnight, though this year the bright moon will significantly reduce visibility. Even so, it’s worth attempting wide-field imaging, being sure to orient the camera away from the bright moon’s glare. Meteor photography relies on persistence and volume. With a camera and a wide-angle lens on a sturdy tripod, aim away from the moon and start with ISO 800-3200, f/2.8, 20-25 seconds. Then, when you’re happy the finished image is balanced and sharp, switch to continuous shooting for a few hours.

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Astrophotography shot of the month: The Milky Way in H-alpha

July is arguably the best month of the year to photograph the Milky Way’s brightest section visible from the Northern Hemisphere. Rising high on warm, moonless nights, the galaxy’s central regions in Sagittarius and Scorpius become prime targets for wide-field astrophotography. However, shooting the Milky Way in Hydrogen-alpha — or H-alpha — reveals a new view.

Most standard DSLR and mirrorless cameras block up to 90% of H-alpha light, which is why many astrophotographers increasingly use astro-modified cameras or narrowband H-alpha filters combined with star trackers for long exposures. Think of it as switching from ordinary night vision to an X-ray view of the galaxy’s hidden structure — suddenly the Milky Way appears alive with stellar nurseries and glowing interstellar clouds.

H-alpha filters isolate a deep-red wavelength of light emitted by glowing hydrogen gas at star-forming regions across the galaxy. The result is striking: crimson nebulae and intricate gas clouds emerge from within the Milky Way’s star fields, particularly around Sagittarius, Cygnus and Scorpius. Love it or loathe it, H-alpha images of the night sky are here to stay.

Read more:

• Astrophotography tools: the best camera, lenses and gear

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• The best star tracker camera mounts

As much as I love chasing the northern lights, I haven’t yet attempted to see the southern lights. But NASA astronaut Jessica Meir arguably had one of the best views of the early June 2026 phenomenon, snapping swirling greens and reds 271 miles above the Indian Ocean aboard the International Space Station.

NASA shared the stunning photograph on June 16, but Meir captured the photo of the Australia Borealis on June 5 as the ISS passed south of Perth, Australia.

The photograph mixes both the arch of the lights with the curve of the Earth and swirling clouds. That means Meir and other ISS astronauts likely had one of the few viewing spots for the June 5 southern lights, as cloud cover will obstruct the views of the night sky phenomenon from Earth.

Meir took the photo with the Nikon Z9, which is one of the first mirrorless cameras ever to make the trek to space. As space cameras need to be thoroughly tested to withstand the rigours of space, using older DSLRs is more common – like aboard the recent Artemis II mission – but the Z9 is one of the first mirrorless cameras to be tested in space.

Meir took the shot through a window at the ISS – parts of the space station are visible at the top and bottom of the frame. A slow 1/4 shutter speed, bright f/1.8 aperture, and ISO8000 helped the camera gather enough light from the dark scene.

Meir is scheduled to remain at the ISS as the spacecraft commander through September 2026. Meir’s background is in studying life in the most extreme environments, from expeditions to study penguins in Antarctica while studying for her Ph.D. to her current role conducting biology experiments in space. Meir was also among the first all-female spacewalks alongside Christina Koch in 2019.

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Few people have seen the iconic Mt Vesuvius – famed for burying the Roman city of Pompeii in AD79 – and Mt Etna – an active stratovolcano on the island of Sicily – like French astronaut Sophie Adenot.

From aboard the International Space Station (ISS), where she’s currently 119 days into a 9-month stint, Adenot has perhaps the most awe-inspiring views of the iconic peaks, which, fortunately for us, she recently photographed and shared with the world.

On day 103 in space, during her 1,598th orbit of the Earth, the astronaut pressed the shutter of her Nikon Z9 while peering into the crater of the dormant Vesuvius, which, from space, appeared nothing more than a pimple. She captured Mt Etna less than a minute earlier, its snow-capped peak billowing smoke.

“From orbit, volcanoes are some of the most beautiful natural sights,” said Adenot in an ESA statement. “Etna caught me by surprise one morning as I opened the shutters. The whiteness of its slopes… and that elegant plume of smoke which is a gentle reminder that it’s only lightly, very lightly, asleep.”

Adenot was working with a Nikon Nikkor Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S telephoto lens, but snapped both images at a 560mm focal length, so she had switched in the in-built teleconverter to crop in that bit closer. All of the frame in both images is sharply in focus and that’s thanks to an f/14 aperture, with plenty of sunlight and an ISO 500 used for correct exposure.

This is Adenot’s first mission to space and she’s wasted no time in documenting the experience on camera.

Part of the ESA εpsilon mission which blasted off in the SpaceX Dragon capsule, she’s captured plenty of candid portraits of her teammates NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, along with scenes of her native France.

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I’ve long been awed by photographs of the night sky, but one of the latest images to stop me in my tracks isn’t a “photograph” at all. A radio telescope in Australia has built the largest magnetic map of the universe yet, a colorful image five times larger than all the previous radio mapping efforts combined.

The data comes from Australia’s national space agency CSIRO and the SKA Observatory, which recently used the ASKAP radio telescope to scan the skies and build the largest radio map of the universe yet.

The ASKAP telescope doesn’t collect photographs of the universe in the traditional optical sense, but collects radio waves naturally emitted by stars and galaxies. Light is still essential to the way that the technology works, however. CSIRO explains that light twists as it passes through magnetic fields.

The telescope, which is located in Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia, measured how twisted the light was, allowing the researchers to map where the magnetic fields are and note their strength.

The resulting magnetic map is the largest of its kind and will be used to help further understand the details of our universe. “For the first time, we can investigate fine details of the material between nearby stars, and study a huge number of distant galaxies,” said Dr. Alec Thompson, lead researcher and SKAO scientist.

The ASKAP telescope completed its first survey of the sky in 2020 – called Rapid ASKAP Continuum Surveys or RACS – which at the time broke records as both the fastest and largest radio sky survey.

Researchers said the latest map – dubbed the SPICE-RACS – was made possible not only by the ratio telescopes' wide field of view and dish rotation, but also the ability to process massive amounts of data.

ASKAP will continue to build maps of the sky as researchers dive into the large amount of data from the latest map.

“With the information we now have on magnetic fields throughout the Universe, we can study things like how magnetic fields affect the galactic-scale interaction of our own Milky Way and its neighbours, the Magellanic Clouds,” said SKAO Chief Scientist and research team member Professor Naomi McClure-Griffiths. “We can even potentially find the answer to questions like when did magnetic fields first appeared in the Universe? We had once thought it would be impossible to answer these questions. I’m excited to say that is no longer the case.”

The data collected is available to researchers around the world.

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After six months of lost contact, NASA has officially declared the Mars orbiter MAVEN lost to deep space. On June 3, NASA announced that the MAVEN Mars spacecraft has come to an end.

NASA unexpectedly lost communication with the orbiting Mars spacecraft in December 2025. After evaluating potential recovery efforts, the space agency has now officially declared the spacecraft as unrecoverable.

While NASA’s loss of contact with the orbiter was unexpected, the MAVEN mission was originally only expected to last for one year after reaching Mars in 2014. However, the orbiter continued to supply researchers with data on Mars’ atmosphere for more than 11 years before an uncontrollable spin drained the orbiter's battery, ultimately causing a loss of signal that could not be recovered.

MAVEN did not have a traditional visible light camera on board. Instead, the spacecraft was equipped with an ultraviolet spectograph imager that not only helped researchers study the planet’s atmosphere, but also sent back unusually colored images of the red planet. Ultraviolet images are edited with different colored filters in order to create images that the human eye can easily interpret.

In honor of the MAVEN’s 11-year mission, these are some of the best images coming from that ultraviolet camera.

This photograph, captured in July 2022, captures the red planet's southern hemisphere and polar ice cap. MAVEN captured this ultraviolet image as Mars was closest to the sun.

The ultraviolet capture shows off not only the polar ice cap, but the large pink Argyre Basin – one of the deepest on the planet – and at the top left, the Valles Marineris canyons.

Ozone turns the northern section of the Red Planet purple in this shot from January 2023. The photo is the opposite of the one above, taken when Mars is the farthest from the sun and showing the northern hemisphere.

Credit: NASA/MAVEN/Goddard Space Flight Center/CU/LASP

NASA built this animation by combining ultraviolet images from MAVEN with a simulated view of Mars. Combined, the animation shows how Mars pulses and glows in the night, thanks to a chemical reaction creating nitric oxide, which NASA says is caused by downward winds.

This ultraviolet photo, taken less than two years into the MAVEN mission, shows several of Mars' iconic features. The slash across the middle is the two-thousand-mile Valles Marineris canyon, while the three yellow dots to the left are volcanoes. The purple at the bottom is caused by ozone absorbing ultraviolet light.

Mars orbiters can take selfies too. This image shows a small slice of the spacecraft with Mars in the background. The arm of the camera couldn't rotate enough to get the entire spacecraft in the image, but it did manage to capture a slight selfie to celebrate four years in orbit.

NASA says this image shows rapid clouds building across a two-day span in July of 2016. The yellow spot near the top left is Olympus Mons, which is the tallest volcano on Mars.

This photo may not look like the shots of the Aurora on Earth, but the purple shows waves of energy that show that Mars gets auroras, too. MAVEN took this shot from underneath Mars, looking up. The South Pole ice cap is the white patch on the bottom left. NASA explains that Mars' auroras are not like those on Earth – they sit close to the equator, so it would be like viewing the aurora from Florida.

This image may not look impressive enough to be wall art like some of MAVEN's other colorful shots, but it is both a significant scientific breakthrough and a technical imaging feat. The blue in the image shows hydrogen escaping from Mars' atmosphere.

NASA explains that the image is a composite of around 400,000 observations taken early in the MAVEN mission. MAVEN was able to take map this hydrogen loss that happens from the breakdown of water and Mars' low gravity continually over an entire Martian year.

Finally, it feels fitting to honor the end of the MAVEN mission with a photo from the very start. The spacecraft launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida in November 2013. MAVEN took about ten months to reach Mars' orbit.

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Four coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the sun are headed towards Earth – which means photographers could be in for an aurora light show overnight June 04 and 05.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has spotted four CMEs that could collide with Earth’s atmosphere, potentially creating an aurora that could be seen as far south as Illinois and Oregon, as well as in parts of the UK. Parts of Australia could potentially also see the southern lights.

The G3 solar storm warning could spark levels as high as KP 7 – which is considered an active aurora – overnight.

While the forecast is for not one but four CMEs headed towards Earth, the unusual nature makes the timing of the potential aurora’s arrival harder to pin down. Currently, the forecast calls for the highest levels of a potential KP7 at 7 PM EST on June 04. The prediction remains at a KP6 and higher for several hours before dropping to a more moderate KP4.

Because those four CMEs could interact and merge, however, NOAA warns that the storm could potentially fall as much as 8 hours earlier or as late as 8 hours later. NOAA’s 30-minute forecast tends to be the most accurate, so photographers and sky watchers may want to check the short-term forecast before heading out.

Auroras are notoriously difficult to predict, but the experts at NOAA have a “fair level of confidence” that the solar storm is headed towards Earth. Because there are four CMEs coming, the forecasters are confident about the higher-than-normal possibility of an aurora, but the timing of the solar storm comes with less confidence. A dark sky is a must – so if the unpredictable timing of the storm pushes the storm’s arrival into daylight hours, the aurora would not be visible.

The UK’s Met Office has similarly issued a G3 solar storm watch lasting from June 04 through Saturday, June 06.

Photographers in the northern US and Canada could be treated to a spectacular night sky if the forecast holds, with several US states within the potential sight range, including Oregon and Illinois, as well as more northern states like Michigan, Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana.

In the UK, the Met Office notes a potential aurora could be spotted in Scotland and Northern Ireland, with a “slight chance” for northern England to spot the night sky phenomenon, potentially lasting into Friday.

The southern lights could also potentially be visible in New Zealand and Tasmania, according to Met forecasts.

Photographers and aurora chasers will need clear skies, as clouds can obscure even the strongest auroras.

Get Ready for An Aurora

Learn how to photograph the northern lights, find some tips on photographing the aurora, or learn what it takes to capture the aurora with a smartphone.

June 2026 brings a host of celestial targets for astrophotographers, from a rare gathering of bright planets at dusk to conjunctions starring a delicate crescent moon amid the shortest nights of the year. Early in the month, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury parade together low in the post-sunset twilight sky, while mid-month offers a brief but valuable dark-sky window before the June solstice ushers in lingering twilight in mid-northern latitudes. Here’s everything you need to know about astrophotography in June 2026:

Read: 10 must-shoot events for astrophotographers in 2026

June 9-11: Venus and Jupiter in conjunction

June begins with one of the most eye-catching planetary displays of the year. Look to the west-northwest about 30-45 minutes after sunset to see brilliant Venus and Jupiter drawing together in the fading light. Though Venus is highest above the horizon this year on June 5, it’s on June 9 that the two planets will be closest, separated by just over 1.5 degrees. They’ll appear as a striking double “star” low above the horizon, though — depending on location — it’s not until June 11 that Venus will shine right above Jupiter, creating arguably the most photogenic moment of the conjunction. Mercury will also be lurking beneath Venus and Jupiter, visible briefly low on the horizon. A short telephoto lens will help compress the scene and exaggerate the planets' closeness against a twilight landscape.

Read: The best cameras for astrophotography

June 8-19: Dark sky window

With the last quarter moon on 8 June, a valuable — if brief — dark-sky window opens for astrophotographers. In the nights that follow, the moon rises later and wanes toward new on 14/15 June, leaving the evening sky free of moonlight.

Even after the new moon, skies remain largely dark until around 19 June, when the waxing crescent begins to interfere. With nights rapidly shortening as the June solstice approaches, deep-sky imagers will have no time to waste, with classic summer objects including the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules (M13) and the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius.

Read: The best star tracker camera mounts

Saturday, June 13: Crescent moon and the Pleiades

Early risers are rewarded with a delicate pre-dawn scene as a super-slim 5%-illuminated waning crescent moon rises in the east-northeast near the Pleiades open cluster (also called M45 and the Seven Sisters). Mars will sit just to the right of the pair. The fleeting sight of the moon and the Pleiades will be best captured using a telephoto lens before twilight brightens the sky.

Read: When to photograph the moon

June 17-18: Crescent moon meets planets and stars

A series of photogenic encounters unfolds in the western sky after sunset. On 17 June, a young 5%-illuminated waxing crescent Moon appears between Jupiter and Mercury, with Venus shining brightly above. However, the sky will be relatively bright. The astrophotography highlight comes after sunset on 18 June, when a now 12%-lit moon will shine very close to Venus and pass in front of across the Beehive Cluster (M44), an open cluster of 100+ stars.

Read: Astrophotography: How-to guides, tips and videos

June 29: Full Strawberry Moon rises

June’s full moon reaches its peak at 7:57 p.m. EDT, rising in the southeast at sunset. As always, the best time to photograph it is at moonrise, when it appears on the horizon looking larger than it is, and draped in orangey light due to Earth’s atmosphere. Foreground planning is key — use apps like PhotoPills and TPE (The Photographer's Ephemeris) to align the moon with buildings, landscapes or distant hills. A long lens (200–600mm) will exaggerate its size and create a more dramatic composition. An increasingly popular way to image the moon is with one of the best smart telescopes.

Read: How to photograph the full moon

Read more:

• Astrophotography tools: the best camera, lenses and gear

• The best lenses for astrophotography

• The best star tracker camera mounts

NASA is building a base on the Moon – and cameras will be an integral part of getting humans there safely.

On Tuesday, May 26, NASA announced a three-phase plan across the next decade to build a permanent base on the Moon. The plan is a massive $20 billion undertaking to build a base near the Moon’s south pole that eventually plans to send humans to the Moon at least every six months.

The announcement could be one of NASA’s most ambitious plans for the Moon yet – and some of the tech that’s making the planned Moon Base possible is an assortment of cameras and massive seven-foot wide drones.

The very first phase, Moon Base I, will deliver payloads to the moon from later this year. That includes the Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies. While that name doesn’t roll off the tongue like, say, the NASA-modified Nikon Z9, the camera tech is key to planning safe future landings.

The Stereo Cameras aren’t a single camera but an array of cameras. These cameras are designed to record how the engine plume interacts with the lunar surface.

Understanding how the engine plume interacts with the surface on the Moon in microgravity is pivotal to a safe landing, as that high-speed exhaust could interact with the lunar surface and create flying debris that could damage the spacecraft during landing.

While cameras will undoubtedly also be part of the landers and rovers that will begin landing on the moon in later phases, putting a specialized camera on the first payload to the Moon before those rovers highlights the tech’s importance in studying the Moon from a distance in order to improve crewed spaceflights.

Four massive drones will study the lunar surface

NASA also shared updates on MoonFall, a plan to study the lunar surface ahead of the planned crewed Artemis III mission using a camera of a different sort: drones.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been developing the prototype drones and has decided to work with Firefly Aerospace on building the space drones. These drones are estimated to arrive on the Moon in 2028 and will use high-resolution cameras to photograph the Moon’s surface, including terrain that would be difficult for traditional wheeled rovers to access.

These drones are about seven feet wide (2.13 meters) and four feet (1.2 meters) tall and will house up to ten high-resolution cameras. The drones will be deployed mid-descent from a spacecraft, where the drones will then spend one lunar day – which is up to 14 Earth days – photographing the surface of the moon.

NASA says this camera system will provide more detailed maps of the lunar surface than current satellite technology can provide. The drones will also house other research equipment, including a neutron spectrometer to look for subsurface water and a spectrometer to measure radiation.

The four drones will perform multiple flights during their mission. Once the drones run out of fuel, they will come down to the lunar surface and won’t fly again – but they will remain operational and continue to communicate with Earth.

NASA has only announced the first three phases of the Moon base – but even this early on, it’s clear cameras will help researchers prepare for the Moon base ahead of the crewed landings. If the viral popularity of the photos from the recent Artemis II spaceflight is any indication, Earthlings could be in for a treasure trove of new Moon images.

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An ancient island rising from the middle of Botswana's vast salt pans became the stunning backdrop for this 16-exposure image of the Milky Way, above towering boabab trees, captured by award-winning astrophotographer Stefano Pellegrini.

But reaching the remote location was far from easy. After struggling to find the route through the desert landscape, Pellegrini nearly gave up on the journey altogether. Everything changed when he spotted two Jeeps crossing the salt pan in the distance, and he decided to follow them.

Three intense hours later, Pellegrini found himself across the vast white landscape. The resulting image, Botswana Baobabs by Night, has now been selected for Capture the Atlas' 2026 Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection, which highlights 25 of the world's most striking astrophotography images.

How 'Botswana Baobabs by Night' was captured

Gear: Nikon D850 astro-modified, Irix 15mm
Accessories: Innorel KT254C tripod, MSM Nomad star-tracker
Exposure: Sky: Stacking of 4 tracked at 2min, f/4, ISO 800

Pelligrini explains: "I spent ten days traveling through Botswana, living out of my car and moving through remote desert landscapes in complete isolation, focused entirely on photographing the night sky.

"This location became the highlight of the trip: a small, ancient island rising from the middle of a vast salt pan.

"The island itself was covered with baobab trees, scattered in small groups or standing alone, each one offering a striking subject under the night sky. Many were naturally positioned beneath the Milky Way core early in the night, while others lent themselves to different compositions, including star trails.

"This particular group stood out to me the most. Alone in the darkness, I took my time shaping the scene, using a torch to carefully light-paint the foreground.

"The final image is a blend of one exposure for the landscape, eleven for the light painting, and a stack of four tracked exposures for the sky, combined to balance detail and atmosphere."

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At first glance, one of NASA’s newest images looks like a crescent Moon – but look a little closer, and that crescent takes on a red tint. NASA recently shared a series of stunning images of Mars’ colorful surface, and it looks like space art worthy of a wall hanging.

The images come from Psyche, a spacecraft that’s headed towards an asteroid by the same name, as researchers believe that the space object could potentially be the early core of a planet. The Psyche spacecraft, which launched in 2023, won’t reach its destination until 2029, but on the way, it’s snapping stunning images of the Red Planet.

Mars is key to Psyche’s mission because the spacecraft is using the planet’s gravity to propel it further towards its destination. And when flying so close to Mars, why not snap a few photos?

The last photo that Psyche was able to take where the entirety of Mars still fit into one frame is a shot of the Red Planet in crescent form. NASA explains that the spacecraft approached at a high phase angle, leaving only a small part of the planet lit by the sun.

The image is a striking look at the planet, with the thin sliver of sunshine drawing the eye to the planet’s colorful surface. Psyche took the photo with the Imager A, and NASA researchers enhanced the colors using red, green, and blue data from filters.

While the smiling red planet is a striking image, that’s not the only stunning image coming from Psyche’s Mars flyby. NASA also shared a close-up of the planet’s Huygens Crater. The scientific shot looks a bit like abstract art, thanks to differences in the dust, sand, and bedrock creating dramatic colors.

Another photo that NASA also shared on May 19 looks almost like an image suffering from some long exposure blur – but the streaky appearance actually comes from wind reshaping impact craters. NASA says that the wind streaks in the image are actually about 30 miles / 50 kilometers long.

Psyche has also managed to snap the highest-resolution photo yet of the ice cap on Mars' south pole. According to NASA, this ice cap is about 430 miles / 700 kilometers. The Psyche was close enough to capture the cap at a scale of about .7 miles /1.14 km per pixel.

Psyche is now beyond Mars as it heads towards the asteroid located between Mars and Jupiter. NASA expects the spacecraft to arrive at its destination in August 2029.

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Bad weather nearly prevented the shot entirely – storms, snowfall, strong winds, and cloud cover repeatedly blocked access to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma, home to the Gran Telescopio Canarias.

But on one brief, clear night, award-winning photographer Uroš Fink captured a dramatic winter sky filled with Geminid meteors arcing above the observatory, beneath a glowing Milky Way. He recalls, "Above us, the sky opened into a field of stars, while a layer of clouds remained below."

The image title Geminid Symphony Over La Palma’s Guardian of the Sky was Fink's first successful capture of the Gum Nebula – a striking deep sky detail in the composition. Now, it is part of Capture the Atlas' 2026 Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection, which showcases 25 of the world's most striking astrophotography scenes.

'Geminid Symphony Over La Palma’s Guardian of the Sky'

For the first three nights, storms and road closures blocked access to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory. On the fourth day, the road finally reopened, allowing Fink to reach the site of the world's largest optical telescope.

After counting compositions and preparing for the night, clouds rolled in, putting the shoot at risk – again. "Around midnight, the first stars began to appear," says Fink, and quickly moved into position.

He describes the moment as unforgettable: "Witnessing such dark skies for the first time was remarkable, with the Milky Way appearing almost three-dimensional."

The final result is a 400MP panorama, created from a multi-camera workflow, combining meteor data and long-exposure frames.

The gear behind the shot

Shot info
Gear: Nikon Z6 IIa (2x), TTArtisan 11mm (x3), Sony 14mm, f/1.8 GM (x2), Sigma 20mm, f/1.4 DG DN, Sony 20mm, Sony 24mm

Accessories: Focus on Stars mask, Capture the Night filter by Dan Zafra, Astronomik H-alpha 12nm MaxFR, Megadap ETZ adapter, Viltrox E-Z adapter

Exposure: Sky: 13 panels, 4 frames per panel at 60sec, f/1.8, ISO 1600 (all frames shot with filter attached to lens), foreground: 8 panels at 90sec, f/1.8, ISO 1600, 14mm, H-alpha: Sigma 28-45mm, @35mm, 5 frames per panel at 240sec, f/1.8, ISO 1600, meteors: All meteors registered into panorama using Auriga Registar

Fink explains, "The final image is the result of an extensive post-processing workflow, combining meteor data registered using Auriga RegiStar from six cameras over five nights on La Palma. All RGB frames were captured using the Capture the Night Astro filter by Capture the Atlas. The final resolution reaches approximately 400 megapixels."

See the full 2026 Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection on Capture the Atlas' website.

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Few photos make me stop and ponder as much as those taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. And the latest of these, published by NASA, shows a majestic spiral galaxy that the space agency describes as “glittering with star clusters” and humongous clouds of cosmic gas.

NGC 3137 is a spiral galaxy which, in cosmic terms, is located down the road from Earth, just 53 million light-years away in the constellation of Antlia (the Air Pump). NASA says that the latest image, crafted from observations across six different color bands, reveals the nearby galaxy in “fantastic detail.”

The center of the galaxy is home to an enormous black hole some 60 million times more massive than our Sun, says NASA, and this is encircled by a network of fine, dusty clouds. However, what caught astronomers’ eye were the dense clusters of bright blue stars and glowing red gas clouds “peppering” the galaxy, and which NASA says “signal the presence of hot, young stars still encased in their birth nebulae.”

NGC 3137 is especially interesting to astronomers because it travels through space within a group of galaxies thought to be similar to the Local Group, the galaxy group that contains the Milky Way. Similar to the Local Group, the NGC 3175 group contains two large spiral galaxies: NGC 3137 and NGC 3175, which Hubble has also observed.

NASA says that NGC 3137 is highly inclined from our point of view, giving a “unique perspective on its loose, feathery spiral structure.” Combined with its close proximity to Earth, this makes the galaxy an ideal target for astronomers studying the cycle of stellar birth and death, as well as for shedding light on a galactic system similar to our own.

Hubble's new image is just one of the ways the telescope, which has been in orbit since 1999 is still impressing today.

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When the Orion capsule of the Artemis II mission splashed down into the Pacific Ocean last month following a 10-day gallivant around the Moon, it didn’t just bring the four astronauts aboard home safely, it also brought back the thousands of images they took during the journey.

Artemis II not only marked the first human-crewed flight bound for the Moon in more than 50 years, but it set records in taking humanity farther away from Earth than ever before—surpassing 406,778 km (252,760 miles) to exceed the Apollo 13 record—and making the astronauts the first people to ever see the far side of the Moon with their own eyes.

It’s no wonder that the crew—NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—along with the automated onboard cameras, snapped over 10,000 shots in the lunar flyby alone, and now, incredibly, NASA has begun sharing these with the public.

NASA shared images during and after the mission on Flickr and the NASA Media Library, but the largest collection that I've seen so far comes from the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth website, which currently hosts 12,217 images taken during the mission, including candid portraits of the Orion occupants and awe-inspiring scenes of the Moon's crater-filled landscape and our planet from afar.

However, accessing the images feels a bit hidden. Try this permalink to the Artemis II gallery. If that doesn't work – the images are large, so loading can take some time – use the search page, scroll down to "Search Using Other Methods" and then type in the mission name "ART002-E" to find Artmis II images.

We knew that there would be a ton of images to marvel at following the mission, as NASA gave us a glimpse of some 10,000 captured during the livestream of the Artemis II Moon flyby alone.

However, Scientific American suggests that there may be some 18,000 more images to be added to the existing collection, given that the image codes run from ART002-E-168 to ART002-E-30001. Just a heads-up, the platform is slow, so you’ll have to be patient to view these amazing photos.

Looking at such a large collection includes shots with blur and exposure errors, so besides being an inspirational look at our Moon, the stars, and Earth, it should make photographers feel better about coming home from a shoot with some imperfect shots – because that's human and normal.

The album includes a number of stunning images beyond what NASA released during the mission's early days. Here are a few favorites from the impressive collection.

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Capture the Atlas has revealed its 2026 Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection, showcasing 25 of the most striking astrophotography images from around the world.

One standout image by Daniel Viñé Garcia was captured in one of Argentina's most remote regions. Titled My Perfect Night, it shows a vast salt flat stretching beneath a brilliant Milky Way.

"Turquoise waters, in absolute silence, reflecting a sky so pure and clear that it was hard to believe it was real," Garcia recalls. Let's take a look at the story behind the still and Garcia's choice of gear. See the full 2026 Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection on Capture the Atlas' website.

The extraordinary Milky Way photo

The image was captured in Catamarca, deep within the Argentine Puna – a high-altitude plateau between 3,500 and 4,000 meters above sea level.

Reaching the location required traveling across rough dirt tracks far from any light pollution. Its isolation and altitude create near-perfect conditions for astrophotography.

Photographing the Milky Way in the southern hemisphere, Garcia explains, "What made this place particularly compelling was its rarity. I had never seen photographs of this salt flat before, and its untouched character and minimalist landscape immediately stood out."

Garcia adds, "In this moment, the galactic center sits to the left side of the arch, while the Gum Nebula appears on the right, creating a natural visual balance across the sky."

The gear behind the shot

Shot info
Gear: Sony A7 III Astro-modified, Samyang 8mm f/2.8m fisheye (for foreground), Viltrox 16mm f/1.8 *(for sky)
Accesories: MSM Nomad star-tracker, Sunwayfoto T3240CK tripod
Exposure: Sky: 8 x (10 x 30sec), f/1.8, ISO 1250, 16mm, foreground: 4 x 60sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250, 8mm

A lightweight, easy-to-use kit has accompanied Garcia every night.

He explains, "To capture this breathtaking sky, I used the Nomad tracker from Move Shoot Move throughout, along with its wedge, laser and phone mount, which allowed me to align it precisely beneath the southern sky."

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The Artemis II launch has rocketed space photography into the fore and I for one cannot get enough of it. So much so that while browsing the internet for more interstellar goodness, I happened upon an older NASA news post from August of last year reporting on the discovery of a new moon orbiting Uranus. But what I found most interesting was how it was discovered and it has everything to do with photography.

You see, a team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to make the discovery by capturing 10 40-minute exposures using the telescope’s primary near-infrared camera, NIRCam. The video (above) shows each of the ten images, all captured during a six-hour period from February 2, 2025 between 01:05 and 06:54 UT.

According to the video’s description, each image is “a composite of three different treatments of the data,” as it wouldn’t be possible to see the planetary atmosphere, rings and moons in a single treatment. The new moon, S/2025 U1 is highlighted by a circle in each image, which is helpful as it’s incredibly faint. As such, you can clearly see it orbiting a portion of the planet.

This is a great example of just how far imaging has come. Even NASA’s Voyager 2 couldn’t detect this moon when it cruised past Uranus in 1986. To date, it’s the only space craft to have ever explored the ice giant. If you’re keen on astrophotography, you’ll know that there’s a full moon tonight and plenty more exciting celestial opportunities for astrophotography in May 2026.

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A backyard astrophotographer discovered a new galaxy with a 2MP camera. A 14-year-old unearthed a supernova by combing through space survey images. A backyard astronomer discovered 17 comets – including two with an old DSLR.

Nothing quite illustrates the power of a camera – new or old – like astrophotography.

Last month, I watched in amazement as Artemis II sent back the first human-photographed images of space taken outside Earth’s orbit in decades. As a photographer, the images were an eloquent reminder of the power of the camera.

I can’t orbit the moon, but I can get a glimpse of the experience with a camera. That’s how powerful and impactful the camera is.

But cameras don’t even need to be the latest flagship models to be powerful. Artemis II used a decade-old DLSR, an old GoPro, and a modern mirrorless Nikon Z9 that I could buy and use in my own backyard if I wanted to.

The Artemis II images had me wondering, what else have cameras helped discover, even without ever leaving Earth’s atmosphere? Giuseppe Donatiello, an amateur astronomer, discovered five new galaxies – using a 2MP CCD camera sensor with a homemade telescope.

Terry Lovejoy is a backyard astronomer who has now discovered 17 comets. His first two? Those were discovered photographing the night sky with the Canon 300D, a 6.3MP entry-level DSLR introduced back in 2003.

It’s not just the camera, but images that have led to a number of discoveries about our universe. Caroline Moore was just 14 when she discovered a new supernova – making her the youngest person to do so. She discovered the surprisingly dim supernova using images from the Puckett Observatory Supernova Search before locating it with her astrophotographer father’s backyard telescope.

The camera isn’t just a tool for exploring space. The camera is an equalizer, allowing anyone to explore the final frontier with two feet placed firmly in their own backyard.

Standing in my backyard with a camera directed up towards the sky makes me feel both small and powerful at once. There’s something about the night sky that eases the tension in my shoulders and makes the stress of the day seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

I can’t name much beyond the Big Dipper and Polaris, but I can stand in awe of the universe just the same. As my favorite science fiction alien, Rocky from Hail Mary, would say, photographing the stars makes me feel “Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!” (An excellent movie, which, by the way, featured stunning images from astrophotographer Rod Prazeres.)

National Space Day celebrates achievements in space exploration and encourages the next generation of explorers. After watching the Artemis II mission from afar, I can’t help but think that the camera is still an integral tool for space discovery, both in microgravity and with two feet firmly planted in a dark backyard.

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A film photographer has done what no other in history has by capturing images of the very fabric of the universe.

Tom Liggett, a photography student at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB), sent blank negative film, sealed in a plastic bag, to a dizzying height of 121,000 ft (36.5 km) using a helium balloon.

Up in the stratosphere, at an altitude three times higher than commercial airlines cruise, cosmic rays burned themselves into the emulsion of Liggett’s film, revealing ethereal patterns not visible to the human eye.

Speaking to the BBC, Liggett said: “We’ve kind of deduced it to be UVC (short-wavelength, high-intensity) radiation, the radiation that exists above the ozone layer, because obviously there’s no filter up there.”

“Then cosmic radiation and muons from black holes, like billions of light-years away," he added.

Liggett spent two months testing different photographic emulsions under varying levels of radiation—including hospital X-rays—to determine which would hold up best in space.

By keeping the negatives sealed in a lightproof ‘dark bag’, Tom ensures that the resulting marks on the film were the direct result of UVC rays, muons, and high-energy particles physically striking the emulsion. The outcome is a series of haunting, celestial abstracts forged from black holes and solar radiation.

He then approached the US-based marketing agency Filmed In Space, which sends clients' products to the upper reaches of the stratosphere with an onboard camera to record promotional materials.

After traveling to the launch site in New York, Liggett watched as, on May 02 2025, the weather balloon carrying his film began its journey to 121,000 ft. High above Earth, the balloon traveled a further 417,000 ft laterally before popping and returning to the surface, with Liggett recovering it using a tracking device.

Speaking to the BBC about the images he later developed in the lab at AUB, Liggett said, “I actually think it’s a more accurate representation of space than a photograph is,” adding that: “It’s capturing the actual molecular formula of space.”

Liggett later changed the name of Project X to Helios I, submitting the cosmic prints as his second-year university final project.

And according to an Instagram post earlier this year, he’s already sent film to space twice more, with the results of projects Helios II and Helios III to be published later this year, although Liggett hasn’t specified when.

“Going into this, all I wanted was a speck of dust or something,” says Liggett. “Even if it was a completely blank image with a tiny alteration in the film, I would have been happy. But to get these celestial abstract results, which are forged from black holes and the sun's radiation... I was very shocked, but really happy. I’ve turned a dream into a reality and it feels surreal!”

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May 2026 is set to bring a host of celestial targets for astrophotographers, from a beautiful full Flower Moon rising to the Eta Aquariid meteor shower. In their wake comes the last best dark-sky window of spring for mid-northern latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, as June’s solstice threatens prolonged twilight.

However, in the dying embers of May comes an unexpected visitor — a second full moon, a so-called Blue Moon, making this month the perfect time to practice a full moonshot. Here’s everything you need to know about astrophotography in May:

Read: 10 must-shoot events for astrophotographers in 2026

Friday, 1 May: Full ‘Flower Moon’ rises

May begins and ends with a full moon. First comes the full Flower Moon, at its most photogenic at moonrise where you are. Although a full moon lacks shadows on its surface — making it less interesting for close-up lunar imaging — it excels as a landscape subject. When low on the horizon, Earth’s atmosphere scatters shorter wavelengths of light, turning the moon a deep orange. Think composition, using apps like PhotoPills and TPE (The Photographer's Ephemeris) to align the moon with foreground subjects such as buildings, coastlines or hills. A telephoto lens (200–600mm) will exaggerate the moon’s size relative to the foreground.

Read: How to photograph the full moon

May 5-6: Eta Aquarid meteor shower

It runs from April 19 through May 28, but May 5-6 is when to try for the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower. The shower’s peak night, it should see about 10 to 20 “shooting stars” per hour, which makes this one less for standing and staring at and more for capturing on camera.

The best way to shoot a meteor shower is always to automate the process. With a wide-angle lens and a tripod, frame the southeast night sky and take test frames, making sure the stars are sharp by zooming in on your viewfinder. Then use a low f-number (such as f/2.8), an ISO of between 800 and 3200, and an exposure of about 20-30 seconds. Use an intervalometer (a separate device or a built-in feature on your camera) and take the same image again and again for multiple hours.

Will you catch a meteor? You’ll only know when you go through your images afterward. Even if you don’t, the frames you’ve shot can be used to make a star trail image.

Read: Astrophotography: How-to guides, tips and videos

May 9 - 20: Dark sky window

With the rise of a last-quarter moon on 9 May, a valuable dark-sky window opens for astrophotographers. In the week to come, the moon will rise after midnight and shrink as it does, posing no problem for evening and, ultimately, late-night astrophotography. Even after the new moon on 16 May, the nights will be predominantly dark until around 20 May when the waxing crescent moon’s brightness begins to bleach the night sky. For those at mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, the nights are now noticeably shorter, making this dark-sky window particularly valuable to deep-sky astrophotographers — and a great chance to image the realm of the galaxies beneath the constellation Leo and the rising arc of the Milky Way before dawn.

Read: The best cameras for astrophotography

May 18: Crescent moon and Venus

A two-day-old crescent Moon sits just a few degrees from brilliant Venus in the western sky after sunset — one of the most photogenic pairings of the month.

This is classic “nightscape astrophotography”: a bright foreground sky event framed within a terrestrial scene. The crescent moon will display Earthshine — sunlight reflected from Earth onto the moon’s dark side — giving it a ghostly glow. Wide-angle lenses naturally capture Earthshine well, but shooting in RAW will give you flexibility to balance the bright crescent with the dimmer surroundings.

Read: When to photograph the moon

May 30: Full ‘Blue Moon’ rises

How often are there two full moons in the same month? About every 2.5 years, yet the “once in a blue moon” event is enough of a novelty to get the media talking about the full moon. Expect headlines like “rare blue moon lights up night sky,” despite it being no different from any other. There are actually two definitions of a blue moon; May’s is a monthly blue moon — defined as the second full moon in a calendar month — which occasionally must occur because the moon orbits Earth every 29.5 days. When photographing the blue moon, avoid the temptation to tweak color settings to make it look blue — that way lies a credibility leak. If you want to get quick images of the moon, a smart telescope is the way to go.

Astrophotography shot of the month: The Milky Way returns

Between the last quarter Moon and new Moon, May offers one of your final chances before summer for truly dark skies in the Northern Hemisphere — but you’ll need to be in the middle of the night. The Milky Way’s core begins to climb into the southeast around 2:00 a.m. local time in the Northern Hemisphere (depending on latitude) — a soft, luminous band stretching across the sky.

Use a wide-angle lens (14-24mm), a fast aperture (f/2-f/2.8), ISO 1600–3200 and exposures of 10-20 seconds. A star tracker will allow much longer exposures and finer detail, revealing dust lanes and star clouds within.

Read more:

• Astrophotography tools: the best camera, lenses and gear

• The best lenses for astrophotography

• The best star tracker camera mounts