Mario Billiani
@starbase
Future astronaut, Unistellar ambassador, exoplanet explorer, KBO co-discoverer, wannabe rocket scientist, occasional palaeontologist – boldly fighting entropy
A large #asteroid will safely pass Earth today at 11:14 UTC. #1997NC1 is estimated at 750–1650m diameter based on a 5%–25% albedo range. At its closest point to our planet, it will be 6.66 times farther than the Moon. Last night I caught it with my @unistellar.bsky.social #eVscope.
Me and my colleague Bruno Guillet, from the @unistellar.bsky.social citizen science network, successfully observed the #occultation with our #eVscope from our locations in Italy & France.
Last week there was a chance to catch the #asteroid (954) Li passing in front of a distant star. The asteroid is ~52km in diameter and resides in the outer main belt. With an albedo of just 0,06 it is almost as dark as coal.
Someone did the math. This outcome is not impossible, but highly unusual.
#SpaceX posted a picture of the two #Starshield satellites on top of the #Starlink stack. Apparently accidentally, because it was deleted shortly after. However, it's hard to catch the genie, once it's out of the bottle... ^^
The Near-Earth #Asteroid #2026KT2 was discovered on May 24 and has an estimated diameter of 50–110 meters. It passed Earth on May 28 at 10:15 UTC within 2.5 lunar distances, and was observed with my @unistellar.bsky.social #eVscope at 14.7 magnitude brightness.
Last night my @unistellar.bsky.social #eVscope recorded the transit of #WASP135b. This #exoplanet is a puffed #HotJupiter, almost 2x its mass, which has an estimated temperature of 1100–1200 Kelvin. It circles its 973 ly distant, Sun-like host star in just 1.4 days. science.nasa.gov/exoplanet-ca...
#SN2026ewd is again of the Type Ia. This exploded #WhiteDwarf shines at 14.9 mag in galaxy #UGC11508, which is located in the constellation of Cygnus.
Another Type II #supernova currently visible is #SN2026fov in #NGC7292, which is a barred irregular #galaxy. This explosion of a supermassive star also has a brightness of 14 mag.
#SN2026fvx in galaxy #NGC4205 is even a bit brighter at 14 mag. Being a Type Ia #supernova indicates the thermonuclear explosion of a #WhiteDwarf star. The distance of 70 million lightyears away from us means this star exploded when dinosaurs were still roaming the Earth.
Inspired by Tim Russ I set out on a quest for supernovae last night with my @unistellar.bsky.social #eVscope. The Type II #supernova #SN2026kid shines with a brightness of 15.6 mag in the beautiful edge-on galaxy #NGC5907. It's the explosion of a star at least 8 times the mass of our Sun.
Beeindruckend. Überhaupt im Vergleich zum Vorjahr. Unitree Robotics wird noch von sich reden machen. Quelle: x.com/i/status/202...
This is not the space plane you are looking for... The only image suspectedly showing it is below.
Well, in this case CAS Space's #Lihong2 will probably send the next tourists on suborbital flights.
Today's Sun with sunspot #AR4341, the culprit of last night's solar storm, right in the middle. Imaged with my @unistellar.bsky.social #eVscope.
Last telemetry screen from #H3F8 shows a deviating trajectory unfortunately. I hope they can save the #Michibiki5 satellite!
During a rare clear night I had the chance to finally catch the interstellar #comet #3IATLAS, which is currently outbound from our solar system, with my @unistellar.bsky.social #eVscope.
New image showing several fragments cc Robert S. x.com/southscanner...
#EECep is an unusual binary star, a so-called "disk-occulting system". Every 5.6 years the Be-class primary is eclipsed by a dark dusty disk of its invisible secondary star, resulting in quite long eclipses of 57 days. One is currently happening, observed with my @unistellar.bsky.social #eVscope.
The large sunspot region #AR4274 is currently facing Earth, imaged with my @unistellar.bsky.social #eVscope. watchers.news/2025/11/09/m...
The @spaceflightnow.com webcast team caught a rather spectacular #spacejunk reentry during the #Starlink Group 10-51 launch coverage. cc John Pisani 📷 x.com/SpaceflightN...
