Blog Profile / Astronomy Blog
| URL : | http://www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/index.shtml | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Academics / Astronomy | |
| Posts on Regator: | 238 | |
| Posts / Week: | 0.9 | |
| Archived Since: | March 16, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
Buying exoplanet names?
I awoke early today for travel reasons and in the process noticed quite a few comments online about an International Astronomical Union (IAU) press release. The IAU is the main international standards body for astronomy and they have said that you can't buy an exoplanet name. Show More Summary
Observatory Drive
I'm currently in Australia's Gold Coast on holiday. Today, in a cafe, I overheard someone mention a road called Observatory Drive. I'm not aware of an observatory in this part of Australia so I'm not sure how it got the name. Looking...Show More Summary
Origami Antenna
A friend gave me a "Space Origami" set for Christmas. Tonight I decided to try it out. Here is my attempt to make a radio telescope (with a stellar background). Origami radio dish CREDIT: Stuart - taken from Astronomy Blog (www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/)
Ten hundred words of science
A while back XKCD created a comic called "Up-goer 5". It was about the Saturn V but with explanations using only the thousand most used English words. Inspired by that comic, Theo Sanderson is asking that people describe their research in the same way.Quite a few astronomers have already taken part. Show More Summary
Imbalance
Last week, some tweets during the BBC's Stargazing Live got me to thinking about the demographics of astronomers.The tweets I saw were about the "Down To Earth" shows being dominated by men (typically 2 male hosts, 2 male guests and 1 female guest). Show More Summary
Goodnight Patrick
2012 was a sad year. We lost Neil Armstrong, Sir Bernard Lovell and, in December, Sir Patrick Moore.For anyone who grew up in the UK, Patrick was synonymous with astronomy. He presented the Sky At Night from a few months before the launch of Sputnik in 1957 right up to and including the current episode which was filmed just before his death. Show More Summary
Fake New Year
Today I saw this image getting shared around on Twitter. The main source seems to be Paul Blanchard but it had also been tweeted by AtheistEarth over an hour before him. Paul claims it is via @apod - it isn't - and that is why I'd first picked up on it. Show More Summary
(Not So) Small Ads
An advert seen in Telescope Trader; For sale: 3.8m cooled-primary infrared telescope (1979 reg). Cassegrain/wide-field modes available. ;0.5" pointing. 4194m altitude site with good seeing (typically 0.5" but as good as 0.17"). Weather loss only 25%. Show More Summary
A week of planets
It has been a busy few days of planetary discoveries and this might be down to people saving announcements up for the AAS's Division for Planetary Sciences meeting (#dps12). Yesterday saw the announcement of PH-1 as the first confirmed planet discovery by users of the Planet Hunters website. Show More Summary
A Lonely Planet
A few years ago I half-jokingly suggested that it would be great to have a Lonely Planet guidebook to Mars. Today I was reminded of that idea and even Lonely Planet joined in the conversation pointing out some others on their wish list. Show More Summary
APOD 500,000
It was only a year ago that I mentioned that @apod had 250,000 followers on Twitter. Since then it has doubled to 500,000. This growth could be some kind of network effect caused by more re-tweets making more people aware of the account. Show More Summary
.AstroPlayer
As I mentioned in a previous post, the.Astronomy 4 workshop at the Haus der Astronomie consisted of talks, unconference sessions and a hack day. Previously we had streamed the morning talks but we'd suffered problems. A combination of.Astronomy...Show More Summary
Sir Bernard Lovell (1913-2012)
It was with great sadness that I saw the news this morning that pioneering radio astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell died yesterday (August 6th). Sir Bernard was the founder of Jodrell Bank Observatory and built the 76m diameter Mark I telescope which was named after him in 1987.Sir Bernard was an inspiration to many people over the years. Show More Summary
1 million Earths
Have you ever tried to visualize how many Earth's would fit in the Sun? The Sun's diameter is roughly 100 times larger than the Earth's so, in volume, that means around 100x100x100 (1 million) Earth's fit within the Sun. 1 million is a large number and can be tricky to imagine. Show More Summary
.Astronomy 4 in der Haus
This week I was at one of the most enthusing and productive astronomy conferences of the year:.Astronomy 4 in Heidelberg. Once again it was very tiring but very enjoyable.It was the fourth.Astronomy following Cardiff (November 2008),...Show More Summary
Massive discovery
Thanks to years of effort by people on CMS, ATLAS and the LHC, a Higgs-like particle has been found at CERN. That is the last missing part of the Standard Model. As the head of CERN said, next on the list for physicists is the "dark" Universe. Exciting times. - taken from Astronomy Blog (www.strudel.org.uk/blog/astro/)
APOD Outages
Over the past few days the Washington D.C. area (and others) were affected by a Derecho - a violent, straight-line, wind storm. It has caused considerable damage including knocking out power to over 1 million people. The power outage...Show More Summary
Letter to the Department for Education
Following the release of the draft National Curriculum for science Key Stages 1 and 2 (PDF) on Monday, Stuart Lynn sparked some discussion on Twitter over problems with the wording in the notes and guidance for teachers in Year 4 (ages 8-9). Show More Summary
Aldebaran the Hunter
Today I was asked to write up a blog post about an African sky story I picked up from my visit to the South African Astronomical Observatory back in 2003. I like collecting new stories about the sky particularly those that aren't from the Greek/Roman tradition. Show More Summary
Astronomy in the UK Curriculum
In the UK we have a national curriculum for all state schools. This is a nationally defined statement of the minimum that children should learn in each year of school from age 5 - 16. After news organisations got a sneak preview over...Show More Summary