As you probably know, the life of an astronomer is usually one filled with travel. If you’re an optical astronomer (I’m not), then this also includes jetting off around the globe to observe at a variety of observatories that are usually located in the middle of nowhere. This year was no different for me, but… Continue reading 2018 in Review, Travel Log
Category: Science
Posts about science, either stuff that I’m working on or stuff that’s interesting to me.
Shooting Jupiter
This enhanced color view of Jupiter’s south pole was created by citizen scientist Gabriel Fiset using data from the JunoCam instrument on NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA/Juno Image GalleryOkay, this qualifies as an exciting week for me. NuSTAR is pointing at Jupiter at the same time as Juno (which took the amazing image above) is… Continue reading Shooting Jupiter
Solar Eclipse Totality
If you’ve been paying attention this year, you may know that there’s a total Solar eclipse crossing the lower 48 this August. This will be a total solar eclipse, meaning that the Moon will be close enough to the Earth so that it will completely block out the Sun (unlike during an annular eclipse, when the… Continue reading Solar Eclipse Totality
BBEdit and IDL
Okay, so I’ve been trying to wean myself off of IDL in favor of python. Sometimes after you tell yourself you’re not going to develop in a language again you find an awesome new tool…
NASA Budget Musings
There’s been some interesting policy commentary on the NASA budget going around today since the budget came out of committee. There’s a bit more going on here than just “Woo! NASA got funded for next year!”.
Planets, planets, everywhere…
Okay, now this is pretty awesome…notice all of the big planets in this poster? There’s a good reason for that.
blackholesandjets
It’s been a fun year seeing what the scientific community has been doing with NuSTAR. This is from a science group that triggered a Target of Opportunity (ToO), which is basically what happens when something cool goes bump in the night that we either didn’t expect or couldn’t predict and someone comes to us and… Continue reading blackholesandjets
Flying over a Dwarf Planet
Ever want to fly over a Dwarf planet? Of course you did…movie links and more dwarf planet goodness below the fold.
NuSTAR and Nanoflares
NuSTAR’s solar observations are in the news again!
Perytons really are mythical creatues
Okay, so this has been going around the arXiv for a few weeks now, but there’s a pretty good case for showing the tenacity of scientists in proving themselves wrong when something just doesn’t feel quite right…