@planet4589 Makes total sense. I’d forgotten about the second SpaceX launch. I wrongly assumed it was the ascent of a second stage but couldn’t imagine what launch facility it would’ve been for such a highly inclined orbit (unless we were nuking Chile).

@planet4589 wondering if you can ID a rocket I think I saw. 7:30pm CDT give or take 5 minutes I was driving on I-20 about 50 mi east of Abilene TX and I saw a cloudy object about 20 degrees elevation in NW. It moved about satellite rate to saw, sometimes cloudy, sometimes point of light. When it got to SW I saw two clear puffs of gas then it went out. Just curious. On my way to Midland to see the eclipse. Hope all is well!

I just had a master’s student talk about asymptomatic giant branch stars. Does this mean they look like main sequence stars but are really highly evolved?

My fat fingers have developed the extremely bad habit of typing “applican’t” instead of “applicant’s.” I seem to go through temporary typing habits like this - once for several months I tended to leave the f out of redshift.

Happy new year! Another year means another year-long keogram! Every 15 seconds throughout 2022, my trusty all-sky camera took a picture of the sky above the Netherlands. Combining these 2.1 million images into a year-long keogram reveals this picture, which shows the length of the night change throughout the year (the hourglass shape), when the Moon was visible at night (diagonal bands), and the Sun higher in the sky during summer, as well as lots and lots of clouds passing overhead.

Pet peeve: excessive use of boldface in proposals. No prob with bolding one or two crucial points. But bolding one or two sentences a paragraph is too too much. This is why the grammar gods invented topic sentences.

@JohnBarentine saw them, as well as all the other naked eye planets. All before 6pm. #WellOkayNotUranus. Very gorgeous sunset

US based folks - free Covid tests just started today again. Each address can get FOUR FREE https://www.covid.gov/tests

@yocum137 I was 12, so I’m right there with you!

TIL that Halley’s Comet teachers aphelion next December. If I can live to a ripe age of 88, I’ll get to see it again…