Venus, often called Earth's sister planet, is perpetually shrouded in a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid clouds. This striking false-color image, captured from Cremona, Italy, reveals its thick cloud layers using infrared and ultraviolet filters. The result shows intricate atmospheric features normally hidden from optical telescopes. Subtle cloud structures become visible here due to the blending of two separate spectral ranges: deep infrared, which penetrates lower cloud levels, and ultraviolet, which highlights high-altitude cloud tops.

The image was acquired on June 26, 2025, using a 255 mm F/20 Maksutov Rumak telescope and a ZWO ASI 462 Mono camera. Frames were captured with IR-pass and UV-pass filters, stacking 28,000 out of 35,000 frames in infrared at 250 fps and 3,000 out of 5,000 in ultraviolet at 30 fps. The final composition is presented in IR-IR-UV channels to simulate a color view of Venus's invisible atmosphere.

ctive Solar Region AR 3712 is a highly dynamic and magnetically intense area on the Sun's surface. Solar active regions are characterized by strong magnetic fields and are often the sites of sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). AR 3712, in particular, has displayed significant solar activity, with frequent solar flares and complex magnetic configurations that intrigue solar physicists. These regions are critical to understanding the Sun's behavior and its influence on space weather, which can impact satellite operations, communication systems, and even power grids on Earth.

Detailed observations of AR 3712 using both ground-based telescopes and space-based instruments, such as those on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), have provided valuable data on the Sun's magnetic field dynamics and plasma interactions. The region's sunspots are areas where the magnetic field lines emerge from and return into the solar surface, leading to a suppression of convective heat transfer and thus cooler, darker spots. The intense magnetic activity in AR 3712 can result in solar flares, which are sudden bursts of energy that release massive amounts of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, contributing to our understanding of stellar magnetic activity and space weather phenomena.

Image Description and Details :

During summer 2018 the planet Mars was unfortunately covered by a long and massive dust storm. These images was taken since June 10 to September 29, 2018 through a 255mm F20 Maksutov Rumak telescope + IR Blocking filter + Zwo ASI 224MC CMOS camera and Barlow 2x.



Copyright Information: Francesco Badalotti

In this mosaic we can see some sunspots active regions and surrounding solar granulation taken before the current low solar activity. Images was taken from Cremona in northern of Italy through a Maksutov Rumak F20 telescope with an F12 focal reducer, Baader Planetarium ASTF280 astrosolar filter and Baader Planetarium Continuum CWL 540nm filter. Cameras used was I.S. DBK41 and Zwo ASI 224MC. Frames stacked with Autostakkert and processed with Wavelets of registax and Photoshop.

Copyright: Francesco Badalotti