Twitpics from Space
ISS astronaut Soichi Noguchi gets quite a view! Lucky for us he’s tweeting much of it from onboard the ISS. Here is a small sample and all the links to get you going.
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Trapped in the Thesiverse
In March I will begin working at Oxford University, as a postdoctoral researcher in citizen science. The ‘post’-doctoral part of that title means that I must submit my PhD thesis by the end of this month. Eek! It has been on the boil for some time now, and I’m pleased to say that next week [...]
Pluto Images Show Changing Surface
New Hubble images of Pluto have revealed that the surface of the dwarf planet changed between 2000 and 2002.
Answers for Allensbank
After a recent talk at Allensbank Primary School, I received questions for many of the children. Here are answer to three of them…
The Polaris Flare
Hearing that a nebula I knew little about was mapped by Herschel made me go and find out more. The Polaris Flare is a cirrus nebula that appears to surround the North Star. Here’s a bit more about it – pretty pictures included.
Orbiting Frog Shop
The Orbiting Frog Shop is back online, selling my own designs on t-shirts and other products. To kick things off here are a collection of products featuring my favourite star constellations.
#uksnow from Space
This amazing image shows the UK covered in snow, from the NASA Earth Observatory program website and it was taken today, January 7th!
My Red Blue Moon
A really quick to show my snaps of yesterday’s partial lunar eclipse, on a blue moon. You can see the little bite taken out of the Moon on the lower-right, caused by the Earth’s shadow. Happy New Year. Photos above and below using different processing.
Happy 2010
2010 is going to be a big year for me and my family. I will be submitting my thesis in February and am currently applying for jobs.
Blue Moon Eclipse
So here’s something that totally passed me by: there is a partial lunar eclipse tonight! Thanks to Astropixie and Astronomy Blog for pointing it out – I would have missed it otherwise. This is an event where the Moon passes into the shadow of the Earth. In this case the Moon is only partially covered [...]
Rosette Nebula and HOBYS
Many amazing images were released at the Herschel meeting last week but one that seems to have slipped by is this incredible montage of data from the Rosette Nebula.
The Winter Solstice
Looking for a nice link to send someone explaining the concept of the Solstice, I came across this excellent series of images from the Wikipedia article on the subject. They show a small island at differing latitudes along with the track of the Sun during both the Summer and Winter solstices.
What was the Star of Bethlehem?
So it’s that time of time year – “what was the Star of Bethlehem?”. This is a question a lot of astronomers will be innocently asked by all sorts of people over the festive season. Best answer: “nothing, it doesn’t even make sense”.
Herschel Stares into Aquila
Herschel has done it again – releasing an incredible image filled with beauty and science. This time it shows a distant, dark cloud located a thousand light years away in the constellation Aquila, the Eagle.
Merry Fucking Christmas
I’m not one to engage in STFC politics – I’m far too vulnerable and ignorant as PhD student – but I can make a few observations about the UK’s impending funding disaster.
Teleporting Santa
The only way I can think that Santa might be able to deliver so many presents on Christmas Eve is that he must be able to teleport – unless he can time travel. Here is a little festive demo I’ll be doing on Wednesday.
Chromoscope
Chromoscope, allows anyone to view the Milky Way and the distant Universe more easily than ever before. The site shows the sky – projected in a way that highlights the Milyk Way – in a range of wavelengths, from high-energy gamma rays through to the longest radio waves.
.Astronomy 2009
Well I can hardly believe it but the second .Astronomy conference is nearly here. Next week (Monday to Friday) 50 astronomers gather in the Lorentz Centre in Leiden to discuss all things digitally astronomical. I created and organised the first .Astronomy conference last year in Cardiff and was approached by Sarah Kendrew and Carolina Ödman [...]
If the Earth Had Rings
What if the Earth had rings? This video explores how it would look ,not just from space but also from various places on the Earth.
Seeing Infrared
I’ve recently become obsessed with thinking about the world in other wavelengths. The atmosphere usually absorbs my particular blend of astronomy but the thing that has really started to fascinate me is the infrared.
.Astronomy CAS Talk
Last week I gave a talk to the Cardiff Astronomical Society, I thought I’d share it for them and anyone else that might be interested. The talk overviewed some of the interesting and fun online astronomy that is going on at the moment. I also gave a demo of several websites or services.
Ways to End the World
A friend recently asked me how i think the world could end. It’s a good question – lots of fun too, after a few drinks! There seem to be countless ways to bring the world to an end – but here are some of the best ones we came up with
The Gould Belt
The Gould Belt is a vast ring of active stellar nurseries and molecuar clouds encircling our Solar System. I am part of the JCMT Gould Belt Survey and the Spitzer Gould Belt Survey who study the star-forming regions within it, but what is the belt – and how did it come to be?
Carnival of Space 125
I am pleased to be hosting this week’s quasquicentennial Carnival of Space – a collection of the best space-related blog posts from the past week.
One Billion Dollars
With the recent furore over LCROSS, the current STFC funding debacle and much recent discussion of manned spaceflight, I was reminded of this wonderful image showing the meaning of a billion dollars. It is relevant to astronomy because it puts into perspective where space exploration and research sit amongst several other massive enterprises.
Max Alexander Portraits
Just a short post to draw your attention to this really cool collection of portraits by photographer Max Alexander. A wide range of people – all astronomers – are shown in quirky these photo portraits that refer to their fields of research.
Bombing the Moon
On Friday, NASA’s LCROSS Moon mission ended with the probe taking a nose dive onto the Lunar surface. This was all planned and was a great way to see what lay underneath the surface at the Moon’s intriguing South Pole. LCROSS was impacting inside a crater that is perpetually in shadow. Such conditions could allow [...]
Asteroid 16 Psyche
The trick the finding asteroids is to look in the same place more than once. I did this both with my own telescope and using SLOOH, the online telescope network. This was my first asteroid find.
LookUP
@lookupastro is a simple Twitter bot that when tweeted with the name of an astronomical object, will reply with its RA and declination and a link to the LookUP page. Here’s the lowdown on what it is and how to use it.
Astronomy du Jour
I am once again enjoying a timeout in Provence, where I have dark, clear skies most nights and a supply of good wine and too much cheese
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