I’m in the last day of a meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico and will be heading back to my new home in Illinois tonight. Sadly, that means I’ll miss the annular eclipse that is about to happen, but I’ll be sure to make plans for the 2017 total eclipse that will be visible across the United States.
If you need a few minutes to space out, literally, check out the winners of the 2012 Earth and Sky Photo Contest that was held for Global Astronomy Month over at The World at Night.
Enjoy!
Categories: astronomy · science
Tagged: astronomy, earth, pictures, pretty, space
Few days… Few weeks. Okay, I’m back. I just moved to the Midwest to start my new job as a post-doc working with CosmoQuest as informal education lead. Woo hoo! My apartment is only partly unpacked, my office just getting set up, the university doesn’t even have me in the system yet, but I’ve officially started! In fact, I’m at a NASA Education and Public Outreach retreat in New Mexico, getting to know my new colleagues.
I really look forward to getting back to blogging. There is a post coming together over at Skepchick about the formation of the Moon, and I’ve said my “Hello, world!” over at CosmoQuest. I’ve finally poked my head back into the Weekly Space Hangout and will be blogging over at Discovery really soon. Speaking of writing, once I’ve finished my corrections, I’ve decided to actually share the final version of my Ph.D dissertations with you all because, well, why not. Science should be open. My committee even encouraged me to write a blog-friendly version of my introduction, so look forward to that as well.
I’d really like to encourage anyone who can get to St. Louis over Memorial Day weekend to check out the College of Curiosity, a new kind of interactive skeptic and science event over at the City Museum. That place is ridiculously awesome all on its own, and you’ll also get to interact with a fun lineup of speakers who will guide you through weird things like math magic and alien life. I hope to see you there!
It’s really, really good to be done. But as the Cult of Done reminds us, Done is just the engine of More.
Categories: general · outreach · science · skeptic
Tagged: blog, events, job, travel
Ever wanted to drop in on a bunch of space nerds discussing the top stories of the week? Of course you do. You are reading this blog.
All of the episodes are now also archived on CosmoQuest, where you can watch the show live, every Thursday at 18 UTC. Find your timezone for next week here!
Also, I’ve been dumping some personal videos that I’ve dug up onto YouTube. Here is a panorama of the PAPER-South Africa site from June 2011:
There’s also my skydiving video that was on VHS (thank you, Tim, for converting it!) and some “Occupy” and related protest footage from recent travels. I figured, why not share the bits.
So… just as I was saying how I need to spew forth words into a thesis by April… I’ve also joined SkepChick as a new blogger! I figure, if I just keep writing and writing and writing in different places, something good will come out. Right?
In any case, I’m honored to join such a creative, fun, smart, and nerdy group. My first two posts focus on exoplanets and aliens, as I get right into my favorite topics.
Also, I finally posted a blog again on Discovery, this time about the very cool APOGEE project that has had its first observations.
And in one more announcement… the Weekly Space Hangout now has a home on CosmoQuest! Thanks to Pamela Gay’s impressive coding-fu, you can now go to one place for the hangout, live Astronomy Cast recordings, Questions with the Bad Astronomer, live virtual star parties, and whatever other astronomical goodness we can stream into your eyeholes.
Citizen science online is catching on these days. Not just for your screensaver anymore, these projects let you get your hands dirty, metaphorically speaking. You can classify galaxies or fold proteins.
I am really happy to share this project which is now in beta and building a community for astronomical research: CosmoQuest.
Categories: astronomy · education · outreach · science
Tagged: citizen science, cosmoquest
Aaaannnnddd… back. In Charlottesville. The last week and a half saw me in two of the most fun cities I know and at two different conferences presenting my thesis work and all kinds of other professional stuff. Crazy.
You can get a nice sense of the week’s astronomy and space stories by watching the weekly astronomy video chat:
Thanks to Google+ master of the universe, Fraser Cain, we’re doing a live chat about astronomy every Thursday at 10amPT/1pm ET (that’s 18 UTC; check here for your local time.) You can ask questions in the chat during the event or watch the recorded video after it’s done. Last week, I called in from the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, and was graced with the presence of such stellar people as Pamela Gay, Phil Plait, Jon Voisey, Nancy Atkinson, Alan Boyle, Emily Lakdawalla, and Ian O’Neill.
Greetings, fellow space nerds and geeks! For the US folks, I hope you have recovered from your turkey coma and are getting back to your regularly scheduled week. We’re getting ready to celebrate the longest night of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere, while you Southern Hemispherers approach summer. However you celebrate the impending holiday, I hope its a peaceful and cheery time! Now, on to the astronomical goodness…
Categories: astronomy · science
Tagged: carnival, space, spaceflight
I was away this weekend at a really fun wedding and with no wifi, but I did manage to write about the stupendous amazing lovely first images from ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array.
And now, the astropr0n…
ALMA shows us what’s going on in the Antennae. Click the picture for a bigger view and my Discovery blog to find out more! Do me a favor and check it out, comment, share it with your friends, etc.
Waking up is hard to do…
My sleep schedule is bizarre. However! I still have my favorite links and stories from the week to share…
(more…)
Categories: general · science · skeptic
Tagged: allergies, diversity, gluten, jref, nasa, neutrinos, pareidolia, sgu, skepticism, slavery, space, vaccines, whooping cough
Welcome to my series of posts about my research trip to South Africa in June/July! See also parts one and two and three…
(As usual, all writing on this blog is solely my opinion and does not reflect the attitudes of any of my projects, institutions, colleagues, etc…)
June 24: Field Work Begins
I was excited for this trip for many reasons. One was the physical aspect. I get to do field work and not just sit in front of a desk all day! But by the end of day 1, my muscles were sorry I said that.
Okay, back up. Before the ouchiness, there was the beauty of the site. On the first ride out from the visitor dorm, we crest over a hill to see the Karoo Array Telescope, or KAT-7. And I just LOVE interferometers and think they are so pretty! The road then continued on to our array. I use the word “road” very generously at this point to signify a washboard-like dirt path. We pondered over the bouncy, bumpy path, wondering if such a pattern could occur naturally with use. Or was it the wind? Something else? This question would be answered several days later…
KAT-7 on a rare cloudy day
Categories: astronomy · science
Tagged: grad school, paper, south africa, travel
I’m a brand new post-doc in astronomy working as part of the CosmoQuest team. My thesis focused on radio astronomy instrumentation. That means, I got to build cool telescopes that will open up new frontiers in the universe. I also love to teach, both in a classroom setting and informally. I'm happy to talk about the universe with anyone who will listen, and I am skeptically curious about all things.
