Dr Robert Minchin

Pancake on a plate with a sliced lemon Ona smash plate and a sugar bowl

If life gives you lemons (and sugar, flour, milk and eggs) make sugar and lemon pancakes!
#ShoveTuesday #PancakeDay ⚓️

Looks like it needs to be just #Extragalactic. Go to the original post to read the thread describing the results

We did not find any evidence for dark galaxies or the pressure-supported turbulent spheres proposed to explain these sources.

From the VLA observations: The ones that were compact (so long lived) turned out to have optical counterparts;
the others look to be short-lived, transient clouds probably formed by ram-pressure stripping or tidal interactions, and we remeasured them as having narrower velocity widths.

Long story short: we looked with the VLA at six “dark” neutral hydrogen clouds (ones without identified optical counterparts) we’d previously found with Arecibo in the Virgo cluster. While clouds in Virgo aren’t new, these particular clouds had high velocity widths, making them rare in simulations.

High resolution observations of 'dark' neutral hydrogen clouds in the Virgo cluster with the Very Large Array We have observed six `dark' neutral hydrogen (HI) clouds discovered in the Virgo cluster by the Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey (AGES) with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), giving higher a...

Paper day! No, you’re not seeing double, it’s a second paper this month! This one is:
“High resolution observations of 'dark' neutral hydrogen clouds in the Virgo cluster with the Very Large Array” (Minchin et al. 2026, ApJ, accepted) #RadioAstronomy #ExtragalacticAstronomy

arxiv.org/abs/2601.19011

Church with snow on the ground with an Episcopal Church flag and a Progress Pride Flag in front and a notice board saying “Epiphany”

Church in the snow this morning in Socorro. ⚓️

This Is One of the Most Unique Road Trips in the U.S.—With 52 Sites Dedicated to Space, Stargazing, and UFOs New Mexico really can be out of this world.

The New Mexico Space Trail—a roadtrip of 52 historic sites related to space—includes the NSF #VeryLargeArray! 📡🌌

via AOL

#Astronomy #RadioAstronomy #NewMexico

That should be #Extragalactic.

Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in clusters : the peculiar gas loss of VCC 1964 Context : Ultra Diffuse Galaxies are low surface brightness systems which have been detected in HI in the field, where their line widths sometimes indicate significant dark matter deficits. They are r...

Paper day!
“Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in clusters : the peculiar gas loss of VCC 1964”, Taylor, Partík & Minchin (2026), A&A, accepted.
arxiv.org/abs/2601.05948
(Actually came out on Monday, but I was down with a post-#AAS247 cold)
#Extragalctic #Radioastronomy

Marian blue for the Magnificat?

TEC certainly receives as priests people who have resigned their ministry in the RC church (I would assume this also applies to other churches with the historic episcopate), so I would say no.

Radio telescopes uncover “invisible” gas around record-shattering cosmic explosion - National Radio Astronomy Observatory Astronomers using the NSF Very Large Array and ALMA have uncovered dense, “invisible” gas surrounding AT2024wpp—the brightest known fast blue optical transient—revealing that a massive star was torn a...

National Radio Astronomy Observatory: Radio Telescopes Uncover “Invisible” Gas Around Record-Shattering Cosmic Explosion public.nrao.edu/news/radio-t... #AAS247

Award being handed to Maura

Maura speaking with slides on a large screen to the left

Maura McLaughlin’s plenary talk on low frequency gravitational wave astronomy (ie, pulsar timing arrays) getting under way at #AAS247, preceded by the award of the 2025 Bruno Rossi Award to Maura and Xavi Siemens for NANOGrav

If you didn’t manage to catch me at the poster, you can see it online at aas247-aas.ipostersessions.com/default.aspx...

Man in front of a TV screen showing a poster

I’m by my poster on the nuclear outburst in NGC 660, at terminal 110 in the #AAS247 exhibit hall.

Notice pinned to board, giving the information given in the post

Christian Astronomers dinner at #AAS247. Meet at the notice board at 18:30–18:45 or 19:00 at Majerle’s sports bar (2nd and Washington), in a back room.

Graph on a slide, showing how much better ngVLA will be than the current VLA or the SKA1 for this work

Slide off conclusions ending with: “A next generation Very Large Array promises a major step forward in all of these areas. “This work is possible because of the U.S. national radio facilities. Thank you to the NRAO, ALMA, and NSF staff who make them work!”

Plenary ends with what ngVLA will add in terms of extending this work and a shout-out to the @thenrao.bsky.social, @almaobservatory.bsky.social and NSF
staff.

I used to call it the “countdown galaxy” when we were looking at it with SOFIA. We made some nice [CII] maps of it (and many of the other nearby galaxies Adam showed).

Speaker on stage to the right with a slide on a large screen to the left

Adam Leroy’s plenary talk on PHANGS and the VLA Local Group L-band Survey getting underway at #AAS247.

NASA Discovers Distant Planet With Conditions That Could Sustain Rocks

NASA Discovers Distant Planet With Conditions That Could Sustain Rocks https://theonion.com/nasa-discovers-distant-planet-with-conditions-that-could-sustain-rocks/

Poster for the townhall outside the room, with a man standing behind it

The @thenrao.bsky.social townhall is about to start at #AAS247, in room301c. Brian is giving out the drink tickets!

Slide on the GOTHAM survey

Science highlights include Green Bank’s “GOTHAM” molecular line survey

Also reorganisation: Astronomy now a section within the MPS (mathematical and physical sciences) division. But facilities (including the observatories) are now under a separate, centralised office, not under astronomy.

Slide with a picture of the old NSF office and an arrow to a picture of the USPTO

NSF townhall at #AAS247 – they’re moving to the USPTO, but it’s not ready yet so everyone is teleworking

Speaker giving a talk

1,800 hours of VLA observations condensed into 5 minutes at #AAS247 by @thenrao.bsky.social ‘s Cosima Eibensteiner!

Man on stage in front of a large crowd with his image shown on a large screen to the left

James Binney about to give the #RAS Gold Medal talk at the #AAS247 meeting.

Conference booth with NRAO in big letters

You can’t miss @thenrao.bsky.social booth as you enter the hall at #AAS247. I’ll be here during the opening reception tonight – stop by and say hi!

Conference booth with pictures of radio telescopes

The @thenrao.bsky.social booth looking (almost*) ready to go at #AAS247. See you all this evening at the opening reception!

*The Very Large TV is still waiting to be put up

View north up 3rd street from the Convention Center bridge. A very wide street with a ludicrously big Sheraton hotel filling half of the view.

Use the 3rd St entrance to the Convention Center – other doors are locked. Then just keep climbing (escalators are out of order) and eventually you find #AAS247 registration on the 3rd floor (same level as the bridge).