Can you trap a galaxy in a crystal ball? I tried! Back in 2018 I took this image of the Milky Way through a crystal ball from ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile.
Today I was invited to join the EIRSAT-1 team to their clean room to help tiny bit while they continue working towards building the final version of the satellite. We are building Ireland’s first satellite! A cubesat the size of a shoebox that will monitor the gamma-ray sky with novel technollogy developed here at UCD.
Exciting times!
Since it's #TowelDay here's a fun fact: did you know that the domes of the Auxiliary Telescopes at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile are uncannily similar to Marvin the Paranoid Android? #astronomy
This is an old image, but the Milky Way season is upon us, so it's a good opportunity to get into astrophotography. Be careful though: it's an addictive hobby! 😂
If you have a macro lens lying around and wanna give #astrophotography a try, it's totally doable! I took the image below of the Milky Way with a Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens & a Canon 6D. I don't have a tracking mount, so this is a stack of 20 x 5 seconds untracked images.
Macro lenses have great image quality and large apertures that let through a lot of light. The main drawback for astrophotography is that focusing at infinity can be finicky.
Kodiak
By Sherloc Watson
Image details:
Raw SHERLOC_WATSON
RMC: 25_214, Sol: 445
LMST: 14:41:28
UTC: 2022-05-22T01:06:21
Credit: #NASA/JPL-Caltech
Just remembered this amateur astronomer who managed to capture the Sunburst Arc, the my pet gravitationally lensed galaxy, with his 132 mm amateur telescope, by taking a large number of pictures of the same plot of the sky over a total of 22.5 hours, then painstakingly stacking them. Capturing gravitationally lensed galaxies is incredibly hard with hobbyist equipment and this is a very strong piece of work.
We don't do visual observations at professional observatories anymore – everything is recorded digitally – but sometimes we do it just for fun!
I took this picture a few years ago at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. That's one of our four 8.2 m telescopes. One of its instruments had been recently removed, and the engineers placed a glass screen where we projected the Moon at twilight. Such a great way to show the Moon to lots of people at once!
If there are certain types of account missing from the list, try to encourage those kinds of accounts to join here and then let me know about them.
I am trying to make the recommendations as well-rounded as possible.
It would be great to see sport represented on here, for example ⚽
If anyone's wondering why there are so many artists and astronomers in the recommendations recently, it's because a large number of astronomers and artists signed up recently.
I can only reflect what is on here.
I am not choosing specific types of accounts and leaving out other types.
The FediFollows directory has lots of categories: https://mastodon.online/@FediFollows/108276705471084305
If I'm missing certain categories, please let me know about accounts that are dedicated to those topics.
This is Mars! #NASA Curiosity Rover met "Blackcraig Butte" on its way up to Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater.
You should zoom on this 150MP super detailed photo via this link: https://easyzoom.com/image/321602
Sol: 3386 / Time: 13.02.2022
Full Size image: https://flic.kr/p/2n41EcP
#Mars #Curiosity #Space
©Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/AndreaLuck
It's not every day that you get featured in Rolling Stone! As part of our recent press conference at ESO about the image of Sagittarius A* we had Arcade Fire playing their song "End of the Empire IV (Sagittarius A*)". We had a blast, and it allowed us to reach out to new audiences!
➡️ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/arcade-fire-black-hole-song-sagittarius-a-1352717/
📷 EHT Collaboration/Arcade Fire
Me, taking an evening walk: Oh the moon is very pretty this evening.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson pops out from a pile of garbage and runs over, shoving me to the ground: Actually you witless toad, the moon is bullshit. It doesn't even do anything. I've seen stuff that's way better than the moon, you piece of crap. Follow me on Twitter so I can shit on you for liking the moon.
Professor Antonio Martin-Carrillo is an astronomer at University College Dublin. He's also a keen astrophotographer who takes pictures of interesting phenomena in the night sky. You can follow at:
➡️ @AstroAnt
Martin-Carrillo's astrophotography site is at https://skywonders.ie and university page at https://people.ucd.ie/antonio.martin-carrillo
#AntonioMartinCarrillo #Astronomy #Astrophotography #Academic #Art #Photography #Space #Physics #SciComm #Cosmology #Stars
As I'm working on the #SpaceTalkTuesday thread for tomorrow about (exo)planets and the "habitable zone" I want to know what questions *you* have so I can try to work them in!
Let me know ⬇️⬇️⬇️
Did you see last night's lunar eclipse? I was too lazy to wake up early 😅
Here's a fun fact though: did you know that astronomers use lunar eclipses to better understand the atmospheres of exoplanets, and hopefully identify biomarkers?
I wrote about it here:
➡️ https://www.eso.org/public/blog/is-there-life-on-earth/
#astronomy
📷 P. Horálek/ESO 2018
Hey everyone
Just a reminder, you can see all the recommendations of accounts to follow ever made on FediFollows organised into nice categories at:
https://mastodon.online/@FediFollows/108276705471084305
As I post about more recommendations, they will automatically appear in this directory under whatever hashtags I've used on the post.
Also, many of the categories have multiple pages now. To see the next page click on "show older" at the bottom of the page.
I love when Mars shows off its clouds on the terminator!
#Mars #Space #HopeProbe
©UAESA/MBRSC/HopeMission/EXI/AndreaLuck
The southern part of the #Moon. Shot taken 08-05-2022. Shackleton crater is seen near the ❌. Parts of the rim of this 21km diameter crater is exposed to continual sunlight. The interior of the crater has maybe water ice. I hope we will find out in the future.
• Astronomer and science communicator
• Media Officer at the European Southern Observatory
• Won't shut up about space
• #scicomm
• he/him
• Toots in English and español