Andrew McCarthy

@AJamesMcCarthy • 484,029 subscribers

Exploring the universe from a backyard in Arizona. Get my latest print 👇

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Live Cam

Andrew McCarthy

Shorts

I’ll never get used to seeing a rocket just sitting on the beach like this

Using public images from the Artemis II mission, I hand-aligned and sequenced a series of images to recreate their flyby. This was the best I could do using these images and some digital interpolation. I don’t believe a view like this has ever existed before.

I was in the middle of shooting my narrowband data on this galaxy when the supernova happened so I was probably one of the first people to photograph it!

I spent 3 hours yesterday with my solar telescope pointed at a tall tornado-y looking thing on the sun. This 14-Earths-tall swirling column of plasma was raining moon-sized gobs of incandescent material on the sun. I can't imagine a more hellish place.

I can’t believe I’ve gone my whole life without seeing a lightning bug… how are these things real

A tense moment: a watchful Greggors sneaks by the slumbering Bailey

Here’s a timelapse I captured of the annular eclipse from Saturday morning. Seeing it like this really helps me visualize the movement of the sun and the moon.

Look in the upper arm of this galaxy- you'll see a star appear to blink in and out of existence. That's a supernova! Very recently discovered in m101: the Pinwheel galaxy (which I happened to be shooting when this happened)

He sings his sad song if I don’t give scritches the whole ride

I’m capturing one of the most important moments in the history of spaceflight, and it was *nearly* perfect 🤣😭

I captured photos of the moon every night for a month to watch how it dances 👀

Humans for scale

These prints are soooo sharp. My printing partner did an awesome job. Still available til Tuesday if you want one, they print up to 62.5” tall while maintaining quality. I shot this as a mosaic specifically so I could do big prints 🤓

Here’s the raw stack vs processed photo. All of that color was there in the image data, and when brought out it reveals a hidden world of geological curiosity!

My first photo of Andromeda captured over 6 years ago vs my latest. Don't let where you are today discourage you from where you want to be.

The best sleeps happen in boxes full of trash Volume up for activation noise

Find someone that looks at you the way Gregory looks at catnip-stuffed toys …and then run away before you get thrown around mercilessly

“Y’all want any biscuits?” -Greggy

As I was working on my 2022 recap, I came across this timelapse video I captured but never shared. It’s probably the smoothest timelapse of Jupiter’s rotation I’ve ever done, captured with an 11” telescope.

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The GoPros I placed near the pad delivered some awesome footage of the Falcon Heavy lifting off. This is one of them I recovered, shot at 120 fps played back at 30fps (1/4 speed).

This feels like a scene out of a sci-fi movie but it’s just my drive to work this morning

Every so often I see a post from someone that didn't find an eclipse an incredible experience. They didn't seem to get the hype. The sun turned into a black ball with glowing plasma shooting off of it. If that doesn't get you to feel something, nothing will 😆

Here’s the time-lapse I promised you from yesterday’s solar activity. Complete with Earth to scale and a bonus of the sun’s rotation. This is easily one of my cleanest time-lapses I’ve managed over such a long period. Enjoy!

I went through the entire archive from the Artemis Il mission to create timelapses of many scenes experienced by the astronauts. Many of these views are firsts of their kind. While this was a ton of work, I see it as practice, as one day I plan on capturing these images myself.

Nothing quite like a timelapse of a celestial event. Here’s some behind the scenes of my latest lunar eclipse capture!

I never get tired of watching the movement of our sun. Captured using a modified telescope from my backyard

This is probably the best look at the shockwaves I’ve seen from the latest Starship flight. Captured from a GoPro I clamped onto a proper camera to record simultaneous video. (I’ll show you the photo the better camera took in the reply)

Despite fighting malfunctioning equipment, I captured one of my most surreal videos ever. That’s the moon crossing in front of the sun. You can see mountains on the lunar limb as it transits the chromosphere. Captured using a specially modified telescope from Utah in 2023.

Just got done watching Mars slip behind the moon. This is a real-time view through my 12” telescope. So cool.

I used a modified telescope to capture high-speed video of the eclipse at a long focal length. Seeing the lumpy mountains of the moon against a backdrop of churning plasma is incredibly surreal. (I hope you weren't sick of eclipse posts 😜)

I'm thrilled to share this unique collaboration with Artemis Il astronaut Reid Wiseman. Artemis II was a unique opportunity to get high-quality imagery of the moon, and Reid was gracious enough to capture some special image sets for me during the lunar flyby.

The moment I captured something incredible on Saturday. These reactions were completely unscripted, just the sheer awe of the moment. I still can’t believe it’s real See what I’m reacting to tomorrow morning- I’ll send email subscribers the first look. Signup link in the reply!

Don’t worry, he’s not sad any more

Zooming into my latest gigapixel moon photo. Created using around 150,000 individual images and two cameras/telescopes to get the most obscenely detailed image I could. Zoom in yourself using the link in the second post.

Reviewing these monstrous moon images up close is key to making sure they look good in print. This one gets my seal of approval. Look at all the hidden details 👀 This goes out to my email and X subscribers Wednesday. It’s more than just a detailed moon photo.

Proud to share my latest project: a 65 hour exposure of the shockwave from a supernova. You’re seeing it rip through other star systems. Any planets within 10LY of the star would have been destroyed! I knew it would be fascinating. I didn’t know it would be so beautiful.

The footage I got from this launch is unreal. This is 350 of 3500 photos hand stabilized showing the hot staging sequence. There's so much happening in this video every time I watch it I notice something different. Bravo @spacex team! Tons more content coming, including prints!

Pleased to share my 2025 recap! I'm so proud of everything that went down this year, it was the most chaotic year of my life but by far the most rewarding. Thank you for all your support in 2025, none of this would have been possible without you. What was your favorite shot?

I’m capturing one of the most important moments in the history of spaceflight, and it was nearly perfect 🤣😭