Andrew McCarthy

@AJamesMcCarthy • 477,470 subscribers

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

Shorts

62,782 views

816,327 views

109,248 views

3,461,755 views

566,660 views

871,305 views

765,994 views

1,788,768 views

407,286 views

1,927,813 views

80,200 views

239,234 views

917,221 views

208,777 views

371,037 views

82,372 views

218,542 views

327,141 views

89,559 views

566,910 views

Videos

sweetdream.ai

Watch Anya Live

Anya is streaming live right now! Join her private show and enjoy exclusive content.

Private Show

Join now for exclusive access

Free preview available • Premium content

763,833 views • 11 days ago

110,308 views • 4 days ago

1,333,722 views • 1 month ago

626,003 views • 1 month ago

12,737,897 views • 1 year ago

83,671 views • 7 days ago

362,050 views • 1 month ago

96,638 views • 9 days ago

79,216 views • 16 days ago

2,157,205 views • 1 year ago

29,852 views • 7 days ago

41,139 views • 10 days ago

3,177,720 views • 2 years ago

This media may contain sensitive content.

1,767,182 views • 1 year ago

615,395 views • 6 months ago

573,120 views • 6 months ago

412,622 views • 5 months ago

1,894,543 views • 2 years ago

1,176,526 views • 1 year ago

117,540 views • 1 month ago

Live Cam

Andrew McCarthy

Shorts

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

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!

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!

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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)

“Y’all want any biscuits?” -Greggy

Humans for scale

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

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

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.

It's legitimately incredible what we can observe happening on sun. This is a timelapse of a flaring active region I captured from my backyard. You can see how energy shifts across the atmosphere in the form of loops of plasma, guided by the powerful magnetic field.

Human for scale

Here’s around ~300 photos I took of the historic booster catch sequence, hand aligned and interpolated to make this video. I’m nearly done with the composite photo I’ll be releasing in print, I *think* I’ll be able to go live with it tomorrow.

I don’t think I’ve ever noticed this happen before, but I flew over another plane’s contrail today. I thought it added a bit of depth and context to how fast we were flying!

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.

Videos

Watch Anya Live

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)

The sun is fascinating to watch. This timelapse was recorded using a modified telescope designed to safely observe the solar chromosphere, captured over a period of several hours from my backyard in Arizona. The entire Earth would be a small dot at this distance of ~93M miles.

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

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.

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!

My first time capturing a launch with a telescope. Should I do this again for the next one?

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.

Here’s some behind the scenes of my photo of Starship’s engines. I can’t imagine how intense it would be to stand there ~600 feet from ignition.

Here’s a short video showing off how I captured a plane in front of the sun, even though they follow less predictable paths than aircraft. The hardest part wasn’t even taking all those photos…

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

Okay last starship video for a bit I promise! I stitched most of my shots from every camera together into a single video (except the one I hand tracked… too jittery 😬) As you can see you can never have too many cameras

Here’s some behind-the-scenes of some of my latest starship videos/photos, with an unseen photo there at the end! Such a privilege to be able to capture these photos!

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 😜)

Sensitive content

I rented a $17k lens to photograph the recent starship launch in detail. When I aligned and stitched all the photos I took together, it made a unique video showing the entire event from launch to catch. I hope to ride on Starship one day.

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

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?

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.

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!

You thought I was joking

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

Here’s around ~300 photos I took of the historic booster catch sequence, hand aligned and interpolated to make this video. I’m nearly done with the composite photo I’ll be releasing in print, I think I’ll be able to go live with it tomorrow.