A step in the right direction for dark skies @haverford https://haver.blog/2023/09/05/new-dark-sky-friendly-lighting-is-here/

Outstanding shot of the #Sun rising behind ESO's Extremely Large #Telescope, currently under construction in #Chile. The dome is about 80 m tall; look at the size of those cranes! The ELT will have a 39 m primary mirror — the largest optical-infrared telescope in the world.

More info: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2336a/

📷 E. Garcés/ESO. Ack.: N. Dubost

#astrodon #astronomy #space

Today I get to meet new international students at Haverford College as I help with some extra academic orientation for this group.

TFL campus safety messages keeps including lines like "walk [] in well-lit areas" which I want to counter with dark skies friendly information about how lighting != safety. Can you point me to convincing information to share?

By a fun coincidence we also watched “Everything, Everwhere, All at Once” yesterday for a family movie night. Lots of statistical physics concepts in there!

Gift to myself for the end of summer and it’s making me feel a lot better about teaching advanced undergrad statistical physics for the first time.

@lucasfowler Thanks. I will try that next time (assuming this comes up again)

@AstroMikeHudson but it wanted me to make an account to use it. I really don’t need another account - I avoid microsoft as much as possible. :(

Had a meeting on Teams today and was completely unable to connect from
Chrome on a Mac. Is that normal for Teams?

Cool story of an old observatory being found and used for archaeology class at Michigan State (should be a gift link to NYTimes article)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/16/us/michigan-state-observatory.html?unlocked_article_code=KQiFt9UuY8YUDoByG_FdZSxnI1Wam3o3vUhdmto03NZL8hnifU7BfNLwKcrdO1aJ8bLCMnZTnBrPQQQhmvI7qNknqaNZGIJU7bQWXjydXvHxJShvD7_eWwEEMxlU96w9SaLCs3U2hDVZWlnwtEYPBH0WuMI6B_tuMsm8iEQh2POs54m6UjI3voz6-D2Hye1fACCXpwozlKe7XeeflvqxUBVUgqBYEb0eL1Zr4XwEPP3fsmwYVK9dJoJf0LQVnFQ-BpULfxwgku2mGQVGMaxMQ5tk2BtdMnmZIavppRZfJDlQEAbZR9nVRAdgeR9F9BlD-r8IfpD1q2j3CW4Vo-WG&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Hello. We have a new comet that could reach naked eye visibility over the next few weeks: C/2023 P1 Nishimura, discovered by Hideo Nishimura observing from Kakegawa, Japan on August 11th. Currently at +9th magnitude (with a bullet) in the constellation Gemini, the comet is well-placed in the pre-dawn sky. The comet is expected to brighten to +2 magnitude in early September, when it passes 0.29 AU from the Earth on September 13th, and reaches perihelion 0.22 AU from the Sun on September 18th.

Saw this beautiful “pilots glory” from the plane today. Photo does not do it justice really at all. I could see two sets of circles for a while. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_(optical_phenomenon)

@dstndstn @AstroMikeHudson looks like those paint pouring art projects which are enjoyable to watch videos of.

Know any machinists (or are you one!)? We’re looking for one at ⁦‪@haverfordedu‬⁩ to work in the science center. “Research Machinist and Instrument Maker | Haverford College” https://www.haverford.edu/human-resources/news/research-machinist-and-instrument-maker

Amazing senior thesis work by Eva White ‘23 on designing a Microgrid for @haverford https://haver.blog/2023/07/18/what-they-learned-eva-white-23/

A couple of iPhone shots of nights skies in the French countryside. All lights turn off at midnight (10pm in winter) here. It was beautiful. I wish more places would do that.

Social media has turned in to grocery shopping in the US - it’s not possible to get everything I want at a single store…

I only found one star shaped thing in Chinon today. But here’s some lavender and a rabbit too.

Just saw the cover of my upcoming book “The Astronomers Library”. It’s getting real (release date TBD). I’ve been saving cool facts/images to post from the research I did on awesome books about astronomy through the ages… so when I have time I will start posting them.