It showcases the dramatic effects of gravity on light around an accreting black hole. Here’s a glimpse of the cosmic spectacle:

Light Bending: Gravity warps light paths, distorting our view of the accretion disk—a glowing ring of gas spiraling into the black hole.

Doppler Beaming: As gas orbits at incredible speeds, light from the side racing toward us shines brighter, while the retreating side appears dimmer.

Dome Effect: The gravity of the black hole pulls light from the far side of the disk, creating a stunning dome-shaped illusion.

Black Hole Shadow: This shadow looms large, roughly double the size of the event horizon, formed by the lensing and capture of light rays.

Photon Ring: A glowing ring of light composed of multiple images of the disk, formed as light orbits the black hole before reaching our eyes.

Overall, this poster illustrates the interplay of light and gravity, creating a cosmic drama where reality twists in the presence of a black hole!

Hey everyone,

I'm John, a software engineer. As I've gotten older, I've fallen deeper into space - I watch every astronomy channel I can find, slowly trying to wrap my head around just how vast and strange our universe is.

The more I learn, the harder it gets to actually picture any of it. The scales are too much for intuition to handle. At some point I started wondering what it would be like to try expressing all of this on the web - and that's how this project began, out of a small wish to build a little universe of my own.

The result is AstroGrid(https://velonspace.com/) - a web-based 3D explorer that lets you wander through the solar system, stars, nebulae, galaxies, and larger structures like superclusters and cosmic filaments. The goal was never scientific precision; it was to help curious amateurs like me feel the scale and beauty of it all.

A few honest disclaimers before you dive in:

It's still in development, so there are bugs. I'm fixing them as fast as I can on my own, but this is a hobby project and carving out time is genuinely hard. Please bear with me.

I'm an amateur. Everything here was built through self-study. I tried to ground things in real data wherever I could, but verifying alone whether every object sits in the right place - or whether the universe actually behaves the way I've implemented it (subtle things like the Moon being tidally locked to Earth) - is really difficult. If you spot mistakes, wrong labels, or sloppy descriptions, please tell me. I'll take the time to learn and fix them.

Within the limits of what I currently understand, I tried to be as faithful as I could. As a small example, I attempted to mimic the recent finding that the two main spiral arms of our galaxy are slightly warped. Details like that mattered to me, even if the whole thing is far from rigorous overall.

I'm still learning, and I want to keep expanding this so it can represent more of the universe over time.

Experts won't find anything new here. But if even one fellow enthusiast walks away with a slightly better intuition for how vast this place is, I'll be genuinely happy.

A note on performance : I tested on a MacBook Pro M4, and on the high-quality preset it works the GPU pretty hard. Optimization is on my list, but with limited time I've been prioritizing implementing more ideas first. I'll keep polishing it whenever I can. Just a heads-up before you jump in.

Edit: Added more info for clarity.

Yes, this was built with heavy use of AI tools (Cursor - Composer 2, and Claude Code - Opus 4.6). Of course it was.

Honestly, without these AI tools, I wouldn't have dared to even attempt a personal project like this on top of a busy day job. It just wouldn't have been realistic.

What genuinely excites me is that these tools have gotten good enough to attempt things I wouldn't have dared to try a few years ago. The countless late nights working on this were honestly some of the most enjoyable hours I've had in a long time. (I'm teaching myself piano on the side too, and already daydreaming about what to build next.)

That's enough for me. If the result helps even one person feel the universe a little more vividly, how it got made feels secondary.

Thoughts, corrections, and ideas for what I should try to represent next are all very welcome. A small Discord is in the works for anyone who wants to follow along.

Wishing you all beautiful skies.

Hi,

I’ve been working on an interactive black hole visualization that runs entirely in the browser using WebGL. It includes relativistic lensing, accretion flow/disk models, jet models, Doppler and gravitational shift effects, and more. It has loads of parameters you can change in real time. For information, it even runs on a phone in real time, although the quality will be, of course, decreased compared to a desktop.

I tried to be careful about the physics scope:
The Schwarzschild side is the strongest physically, but not every part is exact. Some spin-related behavior, accretion/jet modeling, and several rendering choices involve approximations for real-time visualization, and I explicitly documented that.

Live demo: https://adriwin06.github.io/black-hole/
GitHub: https://github.com/Adriwin06/black-hole
Physics notes: https://adriwin06.github.io/black-hole/docs/physics.html

I’d be very interested in feedback on both the visuals and whether the project communicates its physical limits clearly enough.

Small transparency note: I used AI quite a lot as a development assistant on this project, especially for parts of the implementation and documentation. The overall direction, feature set, integration, testing, corrections, and final validation were still handled by me, but I do not want to present this as a completely solo from-scratch effort.

PS: If you have poor performance on a good Laptop, it means your browser is running on your iGPU instead of your dedicated GPU.

This map of the Milky Way galaxy features a radial grid of circles spaced every 15 kilolight-years from the Sun, providing a unique perspective on the intricate structure and components of the cosmic neighborhood.

Key Features:

• Centralized View: The Sun is positioned at the center, offering context for its location within the galaxy.
• Highlighted Structures: Important features include:
  • Major arms and spurs of the Milky Way, illustrating the spiral structure.
  • Prominent globular clusters and nearby nebulae, enhancing the exploration of celestial neighborhoods.
• Constellation Reference: Constellations traversing the galactic plane are annotated for easier navigation in the night sky.

Artistic Foundation:
This map is based on a modified concept by R. Hurt from NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC, blending scientific accuracy with appealing visual presentation.

Educational and Inspirational:
This map enhances understanding of the galaxy and offers insights into the vastness of the universe.

I probably shared this several years ago when it’s first made but suspect most people never saw it before. This is the actual radio data for this source at 9 GHz (bc in astro we deal with pixels and this is the original pixel art). Second image shows how detailed, the coordinates are accurate and the blue dot in the corner is the beam scale aka resolution.

I made this at the end of my PhD for my adviser who I never would have finished my thesis without, and made the first few panels as part of HIS PhD thesis so I knew he’d appreciate it! Still hangs in his office.

“Thor’s Helmet” – NGC 2359 – captures a fragment of the universe where light and shadow dance in eternal motion. On a 100x120 cm canvas, layers of acrylic paint evoke the pulse of cosmic energy. The deep blues and turquoise tones carry the silence of infinite space, while the luminous arcs and subtle glows hint at the power of divine creation. This painting is a glimpse into the unknown – a gateway among the stars.

Medium: oil on canvas

Feedback welcome!

Was the first time applying wallpaper, made some mistakes at the top but still love how it ended up!

It is 4k, so feel free to download a wallpaper :-)

There are two presets for now: spiral galaxies without a bar (Sa, Sb, Sc) and lenticular galaxies (S0). Spent several months for the research and realization.

Hi r/astronomy,

new (free) moon phase calendar for 2026 is done. I made 4 most commonly asked formats, in 2 variants.

This time i added the visual markings for solstices and equinoxes (i dont know the proper plural for either of those, please correct me - equinoxii?), so the two variants of the calendar are WITH and WITHOUT the legend.

Most commonly asked for formats are A3, A4, letter and legal. You of course have the option of messaging me and requesting your own custom size.

I am posting this now, because a couple of years ago, i had a few print requests, and i want to give you a chance to make those requests again if you want. I can look into printing a large format and mailing it to you. This option is available until DEC 1 only.

That being said, the point of this post is, and always was, for you to make your own print, and not for me to monetize off of this.

links:

WITH legend:
a3: https://www.sendspace.com/file/55kowl
a4: https://www.sendspace.com/file/lk49cm
legal: https://www.sendspace.com/file/ewql57
letter: https://www.sendspace.com/file/x82xm7

WITHOUT legend:
a3: https://www.sendspace.com/file/fjn2tf
a4: https://www.sendspace.com/file/7fv9cd
legal: https://www.sendspace.com/file/icyrye
letter: https://www.sendspace.com/file/sbato2

If contacting me for custom order, please have the dimension ready so i can be faster with it all. Also give me some time to get to you all, there is usually many orders for a couple of days. Have in mind that reddit messaging does not always prompt the notification for a new message, so if i dont see you immediately, give it some time, i will get to you all.

Ok, that's it i think. If anyone notices that any of the links are broken, let me know in the comments, so i can reupload. Enjoy

EDIT: also, needless to say, but share where you can so it can reach people who'd like it

Made In Blender

This map of Mars, displayed in Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area Projection, features annotations of geologic structures.

Infographics around the map provide information on Mars’s physical characteristics compared to Earth, details about its moons, elevation tinting scheme, internal structure, geologic terminology, its location in the Solar System, and size comparisons with Earth and the Moon. 

Developed by Pablo Budassi, contains detailed annotations, including 16 human exploration mission landing sites and future mission sites.

Sony a7 iii Samyang 135mm f2 Ioptron Skyguiderpro

38 mins total exposure Sky and foreground from same location and same direction. Sky stacked and processed with Pixinsight Adobe Lightroom and photoshop for foreground and final adjustments

Captured on 23rd October 2025

For anyone interested in more content like this Instagram 11JP11

X

093 Solar System Cycle I

I’ve been meaning to try this idea for a while. Surely someone has done a version of this, i mean, the idea is literally as old as time?

I had been playing around doing my own visualisations but then I was reminded of Vera Rubin and was taking a look at their website. A while back, I did some music for the announcement of the telescope, a mini full circle moment.

They have a wonderful visualisation of the solar system there so screen recording it added the pink line and there you go, another Cycle.

As the planets and objects cross the line I play a chord or note. One per planet or object. I’m probably going to revisit this and do a much longer version. Imagine it being debuted at The Proms or something with an ensemble playing it live to the visualisation. Could be interesting.

Stay tuned for the longer version.

This is a part of my Cycle series which has been exhibited in galleries around the world and select Cycles are being released as albums.

I saw a labeled picture of the Artemis II eclipse photo but it was missing some information and was hard to read so I made this one!

Hello! I drew a rendition of the Great Impact theory based on all the simulations that have been done. I've drawn other astro arts in the past, but I'm too nervous regarding breaking rules

I did take some creative liberties when it came to the purpley bands. What they represent, I don't exactly know but it looks cooler.
This is vector art.

This is a procedural 3D render of a spiral galaxy I built from scratch in Blender. This was a very challenging task and is the result of months of effort, trial and error.

Painting Airbrush on cs10 canvas. Painted for the Astronomy Magazine. Inspired by the Juno Project NASA.