Brian Grefenstette

Category: Science

Posts about science, either stuff that I’m working on or stuff that’s interesting to me.

  • 2018 in Review, Travel Log

    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 I think it’s worth looking back at the travel that came about this year (if for no other reason than for me to remember all of the places I’ve been and why I feel tired all of the time).

    This draft has been hiding in my “To finish” folder since mid-December, so I’m pushing out Part I here.

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  • 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 at it’s closest approach to Jupiter (also known as a “perijove”). Part of my job is figuring out how to target objects that move in the sky (Jupiter, the Sun, the Moon, etc), so this week is a bit of a test.

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  • Solar Eclipse Totality

    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 Moon is just a little farther away and only covers most of the solar disk).

    This is also the first total eclipse visible from the Lower 48 in the last century.

    In one of my meetings this morning someone mentioned that there are a bunch of awesome interactive Google Maps that have been generated to show the track of the eclipse.

    Go play, it’s fun.

  • BBEdit and IDL

    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…
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  • NASA Budget Musings

    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!”.

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  • 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.

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  • blackholesandjets

    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 says “Hey, we should look at this, it’s really interesting!”

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  • Flying over a Dwarf Planet

    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.

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  • NuSTAR and Nanoflares

    NuSTAR’s solar observations are in the news again!

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  • 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…

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