About Nightsky.pics
Nightsky.pics was launched in October 2026 and was developed by Mike Rosseel and Kris Christiaens from Belgium.
Both have been passionate about astronomy and astrophotography their entire lives and decided to develop a platform where anyone can post their astrophotographs. With this website, they offer a modern platform that focuses on interaction and image sharing, where even inexperienced astrophotographers can learn from others.
Nightsky.pics is part of the Belgian nonprofit organization vzw Parsec, whose mission is to promote astronomy and related topics through the internet.
vzw Parsec is also the nonprofit organization behind the popular space weather website SpaceWeatherLive.com, where you can track solar activity in real time or check whether the aurora will be visible.
What the site does with your image
The site plate-solves each image. It finds the position of the image on the sky and names the objects in it. Each object has a page with all the images of that object.
The site reads the capture data from the file, for example the telescope, the exposure and the time. You can change these values.
Challenges and the sky tonight
Challenges are lists of objects, for example the Messier list. Your images count for each challenge. You get a bronze, silver and gold badge as the count goes up.
The Tonight page shows the best targets for tonight at your place.
Your location stays private
The site removes GPS data and other personal data from the public files. Other people see only an approximate position of the image. You choose how approximate it is, or you hide it.
Test period
The site is in a test period now. Some pages and features can change.