Peter Ferguson

Throwback post: 𝗧𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗹-𝗽𝗼𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗼 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗮𝗹𝗮𝘅𝘆 by @guilimberg et al. ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021ApJ...., including data from 25 Gemini programs between 2014-2019!!

#Astronomy

Zooniverse The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research.

We’ve got a new zooniverse program called Dwarf Quest! Help us find members of our Milky Way’s galactic entourage in data from the Dark Energy Camera
www.zooniverse.org/projects/ywy...

First Images from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory | #RubinFirstLook We’re nearly ready to #CaptureTheCosmos! Join the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory team on June 23, 2025 at 11am US EDT as they reveal the first incredible ...

Get ready to join us virtually for #RubinFirstLook — the grand reveal of images from Rubin, and the first preview of what's to come over the next ten years as Rubin begins to #CaptureTheCosmos ✨🔭🧪

🗓️: June 23, 2025
🕚: 11am US EDT
🔗: ls.st/rubin-first-look-livestream

Creative illustration. In it, we see a divided-into-five screen. Each screen portion contains a graphical representation of one of the Rubin Observatory's Science Goals.

We are 4 days from Rubin First Look, so we're locked in on our 4 science goals! 🔭🧪

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory will focus on:

🧐 Understanding Dark Matter and Dark Energy
🌎 Creating an Inventory of the Solar System
🌌 Mapping the Milky Way
☄️ Exploring the Changing Sky

Lights, camera, action!

The world's largest digital camera has been installed at NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory! 🤩

The LSST Camera was the final major component of the observatory. With it in place, Rubin officially enters its final phase of testing!🔭

🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/lsst-camera-installed

The cost of federal workforce salaries is only 4.3% of the budget

Absolutely wild to fuck the economy over 4.3% of the federal budget and the Republicans are just like “nah it’s cool”

MUTUAL AID ALERT:
Stand with our community in Astro+ adjacent fields impacted by the attack on DEIA, support our community by giving aid through our GoFundMe. See links in thread!
- choir collab, @blackinastro.bsky.social, Astro Poverty Survey Team, MVMT Consulting @dranicole.bsky.social)

A Sweeping Ban on D.E.I. Language Roils the Sciences (Gift Article) President Trump’s executive order is altering scientific exploration across a broad swath of fields, even beyond government agencies, researchers say.

Lots of anticipatory obedience from scientific institutions including ones that are home to astronomers and physicists, like Brookhaven National Lab and Vera Rubin Observatory. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️ #giftlink

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/s...

Damaging and wildly illegal bsky.app/profile/chan...

How quickly scientific collaborations dump previously vocal commitments to inclusivity+ to continue their science without risking losing federal $

Do I want science and paychecks to continue? Yes. Is it worth this? Everyone in leadership seems to think so.

Disappointing does not begin to cover it

American science and medicine has been thrown into chaos and uncertainty over the past week. Here are some stories to get up to speed. 1/12

When you turn it on and it works spectacularly!

The Rubin team has successfully completed the first on-sky engineering tests using the 144-Mpx engineering camera. Up next: installing the largest digital camera in the world, LSST Camera! 🔭🧪

rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-completes-comcam-tests

Effects of galactic environment on size and dark matter content in low-mass galaxies We utilize the cosmological volume simulation, FIREbox, to investigate how a galaxy's environment influences its size and dark matter content. Our study focuses on approximately 1,200 galaxies (886 ce...

Kicking off the new year with a paper day!

With @jorgitomoreno.bsky.social, Robert Feldman, Marckie Zeender, José Benavides, Courtney Klein, Coral Wheeler, @jbprime.bsky.social, @linoush95.bsky.social, and Phil Hopkins

arxiv.org/abs/2501.04084

This image shows the hourglass shape of the nights shortening and lengthening from winter to summer and from summer to winter, passing clouds, the Moon passing through the night sky every month (diagonal bands) and the Sun climbing higher in the sky during summer.

For the 4th year in a row, my all-sky camera has been taking an image of the sky above the Netherlands every 15 seconds. Combining these images reveal the length of the night changing throughout the year, the passage of clouds and the motion of the Moon and the Sun through the sky. #astrophotography

Rubin Observatory beneath a glowing night sky showing the band of the Milky Way, Venus, and a comet. The observatory is a boot-shaped structure at center, with long white service building and vertical silver dome. The Milky Way stretches horizontally overhead as a cotton-candy-like band of stars and dust. Venus shines brightly as a point to the left, and the thin, faint streak of a comet appears above the observatory

New year, fresh starts. And Rubin will start something truly epic in 2025 🌌

It's officially the year Rubin will finish construction! This is the year we will begin our epic decade-long quest to #CaptureTheCosmos 🎥

🔭🧪

📷: H. Stockebrand

Rubin Observatory's telescope inside the observatory dome, with the night sky visible through the rectangular opening overhead. The short and squat teal telescope is viewed from a diagonal angle at ground level, pointed straight up and illuminated from the bottom.

✍️ Rubin #CommissioningNotes, entry 2️⃣: when you turn it on and it works 🤌

Initial tests with Rubin's test camera, ComCam, showed the telescope was already nearly aligned before even looking at the sky — a testament to decades of work! 🔭🧪

🧵

First evidence for astrophysical nuclear fission, by my RPA collaborators! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🔭

This is so cool! Follow the link and find some dark matter 🕵️‍♀️