Tweprints Update
Back in April I launched a new project called arXiv on Twitter, or just ‘Tweprints’. So far the results are interesting and as we have now passed the 500 tweets mark, I thought it would be nice to report on some facts and figures.
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.Astronomy 2009 Poster
The posters for the 2009 .Astronomy Conference are being delivered to several places around the world and should be appearing in a department near you soon. If you don’t see one, then why not print one out and put it up? Or maybe you’d like to support the conference by mentioning it on your own [...]
Open Science
The Internet represents an opportunity to change the 300-year-old system of scientific endeavour. Yesterday I gave the final departmental astrolunch of the semester, which reviewed Michael Neilsen’s excellent Physics World article ‘Doing Science in the Open’, which tackles how we might change it and why.
The Galileoscope
400 years ago Galileo Galilei made himself a telescope and looked up at the stars only to find that Saturn was not quite circular, Jupiter had moons and the Moon was covered in creaters. To celebrate the anniversary of this event, the year 2009 was deemed the International Year of Astronomy 2009.
As part of IYA2009, a team [...]
How I Got Into Astronomy
How did I get into astronomy? I was born in 1981 so my formative years were the late 80s and early 90s. I am an astronomer forged from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Hubble Space Telescope and of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. I would say that those were the things that got me into astronomy? [...]
Herschel and Planck Launch Minute-by-Minute
On Thursday (at 13:12 UT) Arianespace will send into orbit two scientific satellites for the European Space Agency: the Herschel space telescope and the Planck scientific observatory. The launch process which will take these amazing new instruments from the ground into space takes less than an hour! I will be watching the event live from [...]
Eyes on the Skies
I have just found myself in possession of a DVD called Eyes on the Skies. I watched a few minutes of it just now and it looks very interesting. It seems that anyone can get a copy. Eyes on the Skies is a book and a movie that is freely available for public events carried out by [...]
Bienvenue OverTwitter
I have been working on a way to internationalize (is that a word?) my OverTwitter feeds, which predict visible passes of satellites as well as Iridium flares. It started to become embarrassing that the @overparis, @overmadrid and @overberlin feeds were not in French, Spanish and German, for example.
I think it is technically now possible and so I am putting [...]
Networking Meteors
I don’t normally talk about the daily APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) images from NASA becasue they are so popular and well annotated. Today’s has really caught my eye though.
Between 2007 and 2009, a group of amateur meteor enthusiasts in Japan got together to create a national network of over 100 connected video cameras. [...]
Hubble Brewing
Herschel and Planck will be occupying our attention late next week, but before then, Hubble once again takes centre stage.
Servicing mission 4 (SM4) will launch on Monday from Cape Canaveral (2pm EST) this coming Monday (May 11th). The shuttle Atlantis is performing the mission. There will be another shuttle on standby, acting as a lifeboat [...]
Herschel and Planck Ready
Herschel and Planck have a launch window confirmed: May 14th (shortly after lunchtime here in the UK). They will be taken up on board an Ariane 5 from ESA’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory has the largest single mirror ever built for a space telescope. Herschel’s mission is to [...]
Close Encounters
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the BBC in Birmingham to help edit The Sky at Night as an astronomy researcher. The episode was about near-Earth objects, specifically 2008TC3, which crash landed in the Sudan last year, after being tracked from space. You can currently catch the episode on the BBC iPlayer.
The BBC [...]
arXiv on Twitter
I like arXiv and I like Twitter, so I decided to combine to two. arXiv on Twitter is a weekend project that captures mentions of arXiv papers on Twitter and then displays them in interesting ways. I hope that this will eventually lead to the most talked-about papers rising to the top of the list [...]
An Extra Positron Problem
Astrolunch is a weekly talk here at the Department of Physics and Astronomy where speakers give talks on a topic outside of their usual expertise. This week’s Astrolunch talk was by Lucy Wilcock, a PhD student studying star formation here at Cardiff University. She overveiwed a recent paper in Nature, covering some results from PAMeLA and the [...]
Poster and Handout About Satellite Spotting
During next week’s Moonwatch event at Cardiff University, I’ll be manning a stand showing people how to use Twitter, Google Earth and the Internet to find satellites in the night sky. As well as showing them how to use Heaven’s Above, I’ll also be outlining my own projects OverTwitter, LookUp and Satellite KML.
Make Your Own Moonwatch
Next week is Moonwatch week and if you’re holding an event locally you might want to use one of these posters to advertise it on your front gate or local lamp posts. A Twitter success story.
Tracking the Remains of Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251
It is now possible to track the debris from last week’s accidental satellite collision using Google Earth and my Satellite KML code. You can download the necessary Google Earth file in this post and follow events in real time.
Galaxy Zoo 2
Galaxy Zoo 2 has launched and they’re asking users to give more detail and therefore have more fun!
Over Twitter Update
I have updated and expanded the collection of ISS- and Hubble-spotting Twitter feeds. You can get the low down on these transit-predicting feeds on my Over Twitter page, which also now features a map showing the list of current feeds and the next expected transit information.
The 21 Signs of the Zodiac
The Sun passes through thirteen constellations on its path through the sky (called the ecliptic). In fact there are as many as 21 astrological constellations all together. What does it mean if Uranus is in Scutum? Sounds painful.
Science or Fiction?
I am part of a new podcast called Science or Fiction, that takes a light-hearted looks at the science behind science fiction. We already have four episodes out in the wild, with more on the way.
BLAST on the BBC
BLAST will be on the BBC tonight. It has an interesting story behind it and luckily the brother of the head investigator is a film maker. He followed the international science team literally around the world as they tried to map star-forming regions and to find the origins of the galaxies.
Detox Supernova in 3D (Part 2)
Many products in the shops use scientific language to promote their products. At this time of year, following a period of festive excess, many detox products are popular. Detoxing herbal teas, shampoos, facial washes, foot pads and more can be purchased at a premium in Boots, Superdrug and miscellany other shops and pharmacies. Do they work? Well no, not really.
Detox Supernova in 3D (Part 1)
Using X-Ray images, and infrared data, a team of astronomers led by Dr Tracey DeLaney of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and including Dr. Gomez from Cardiff, created a 3D visualisation of the Cassiopeia A supernova to get a more complete understanding of how the explosion happened.
2009 Kicks Off
2009 is the International Year of Astronomy and the accompanying podcast has already kicked off. Official events begin later. This year will also be a significant one for me personally.
Triple Conjunction
I took some images of the triple conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon. It was a very pretty event, and I’ve hardly done it justice, but I thought I’d add my photos into the mix.
Exoplanets Revealed
A lot of people are already blogging this but here we have it: an optical image of a planet orbiting around another star. The star is Fomalhaut and the planet is excitingly named Fomalhaut b. Name suggestions anyone?
5 Scientific Ideas That Could Just Be Bullsh*t
Here are some things that get talked about a lot as fact, but really are just good theories. When verified by direct observation, most of these will be considered a nobel-prize winning, ground-breaking new frontier in physics. Until then, they are just good ideas, waiting to be verified.
I Am Really Bored Today
Sometimes the thrill of uncovering the true nature of the Universe doesn’t quite last all day. Today… well it’s really boring and slow. I tried to work - I really did. I stared at a paper I am writing for at least an hour but nothing came out of my head and into the document. Wait, I lied; there was a spelling correction I think.
Astronomy in a Paperless Universe
What is the best time of day to submit to astro-ph? Do astro-ph and ADS harm publishers? I’ll be trying to answer these questions and others as I discuss the effect of the Internet on scientific papers.
Lifestream
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Off to the swimming pool. http://flic.kr/p/6BQDKb [#]
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Shared Off to the swimming pool.
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Shared New World Ordered
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Swine flu parties? Are you fucking kidding me? Morons. [#]
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According to @cardiffuni PhD students are not technically people. This is how they are allowed to squish 6 of us into our tiny office! #fb [#]
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Thanks for all the tweets. The #overtwitter feeds remain! Am just gutted that someone was able to do something I'd wanted to do a year ago! [#]
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Methinks @twisst spells the end for the #overtwitter project - I just didn't have the CPU to do it like that :( [#]
