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Rebecca Oppenheimer

@roppenhe.bsky.social

Astrophysicist, Writer, Degenerate beccasubstellar.com or rebeccaoppenheimer.com

281 Followers  |  22 Following  |  27 Posts  |  Joined: 24.09.2025  |  2.244

Latest posts by roppenhe.bsky.social on Bluesky

That's it. A poster at the conference I mentioned. πŸ™‚

28.09.2025 22:07 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

He is clean.

28.09.2025 10:27 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

This is great, thank you. It also confirms what I wrote, although in substantially more detail. Part of this I knew but thank you for providing more context. Fantastic! Thank you.

28.09.2025 09:33 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

It wasn't really a clean room. As you can see, the instrument is sealed up.

28.09.2025 08:42 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Dog poster about astronomical observations

Dog poster about astronomical observations

Here is the poster that Paco presented about what it is like to be an astrodog, Chapter IV. He presented it in the front of the room at a conference in Delaware some years ago.
The Brown Dwarf-Exoplanet Connection Conference (BDExoCon) at the University of Delaware, Newark, October 2019.

28.09.2025 08:41 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
Paco, the astrodog on top of Parvi, an astronomical instrument in use at Palomar

Paco, the astrodog on top of Parvi, an astronomical instrument in use at Palomar

Here is Paco, guarding PARVI, an instrument my team and I deployed and have now automated to understand what our solar system might look like from ~30 light years away. Paco is gone now, but he had true pride as our spokesdog for two projects. He had a paper published and went to Palomar 10 times.

28.09.2025 08:12 β€” πŸ‘ 57    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0

The pair are so far away that they likely aren't much influenced in that manner, but we have no idea how such a complex system formed. It's wonderfully fascinating!

26.09.2025 07:15 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

These days pixels are rather ordinary, but perhaps not Ordinary.

26.09.2025 07:13 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Do you have a reference for that? I'd love to read it.

26.09.2025 07:09 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Very helpful! Thank you. @davidho.bsky.social also told me I should to this.

26.09.2025 07:08 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

So she'd be a Jarutechi?

26.09.2025 07:06 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

We certainly can. The technology now is so far superior to the imaginings of the early zoning laws.

26.09.2025 06:39 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Normalize this to population. In 1914 when the first zoning laws in the world came into effect in Manhattan, more than 2 million people lived below 14th street. These data need context. Manhattan is only about 1.6M now. It should be well over 55M as the 1914 law suggested and imagined for the future

26.09.2025 06:38 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I am an amateur urbanist and futurist, but these numbers need to be normalized to the population. 50,000 new apartments or huts in outer boroughs is about 0.5% growth per capita. In a city where the occupancy rate is well over 99.5%, hundreds of times this level of development is needed. Up not out!

26.09.2025 06:30 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you. As you can tell, I'm a newbie at bluesky.

25.09.2025 21:13 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Haha, that's a great story!

25.09.2025 21:13 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Have you ever thought about the origin of the word pixel? In footnote 114 or so of my book, minor changes to come, before I get it out there, you might find something like this, well, fun! Let this post be a teaser.

25.09.2025 08:44 β€” πŸ‘ 52    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 4    πŸ“Œ 0

Very few know what a cyanotype is. Delighted that you noticed that. That was work with liahollan.com, my first artist in residence and dear friend. @liahalloran.bsky.social

25.09.2025 08:28 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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My robot vomited in my lab. It's ok. We cleaned it up.

25.09.2025 08:20 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

A dear friend and colleague @climateofgavin.bsky.social. I got my first science job at NASA GISS eons ago.

25.09.2025 07:01 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
It's Twins! Mystery of Famed Brown Dwarf Solved Astronomers have discovered that a well-studied brown dwarf is in fact two that are orbiting closely around each other

Regarding Gliese 229B, seen first in 1994 by me: a team lead by Jerry Xuan revealed it to be two strange worlds whipping around each other every twelve days as they orbit a nearby star with other companions or planets. Binary worlds are no longer sci-fi. They exist. www.caltech.edu/about/news/i...

25.09.2025 04:58 β€” πŸ‘ 16    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
It's Twins! Mystery of Famed Brown Dwarf Solved Astronomers have discovered that a well-studied brown dwarf is in fact two that are orbiting closely around each other

It's two! www.caltech.edu/about/news/i...

25.09.2025 04:40 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you!

25.09.2025 04:39 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

This means the world to me. More to come. I hope you enjoy it. I'll post new or old stuff now and then. Thank you!

25.09.2025 04:33 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

There is a lot of telemetry and metrology in what I do! πŸ™‚

25.09.2025 04:30 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

I did indeed. The term is really "brown dwarf" but "planets" and brown dwarfs as well as stars are all interrelated.

25.09.2025 04:29 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Hello people! I'm a professor and curator of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. I study strange new worlds in the solar neighborhood. If you want to learn more about my work: beccasubstellar.com

24.09.2025 07:51 β€” πŸ‘ 80    πŸ” 7    πŸ’¬ 6    πŸ“Œ 0

@roppenhe is following 20 prominent accounts