Thomas Gaudin

The newest Astronomer’s Telegram of the S-CUBED team is now live! We have detected a new X-ray binary outburst in the SMC with our weekly observations.

SXP 8.80 is the second of its kind to go off in 3 months and another interesting source to track! 🔭✨

www.astronomerstelegram.org?read=17246

g+ GameFlow: MLS Next Pro Regular Season Huntsville City FC v Chattanooga FC on May 17, 2025. #HNTvCFC ⚽️🤖

Absolute highway robbery in Huntsville tonight. 3 points to CFC in a match where they got thoroughly outplayed.

2 goals against the run of play. A penalty saved in the 90’. What a game.

Introducing MLS Next Pro’s Race to the Playoffs!

We’re 8 matches into a 28 match season. Over the next 10 matches, we will see teams start to make their push for early playoff qualification. Use this as a handy guide to see when teams cross last year’s “playoff safety zone”!

Data from yesterday’s Chattanooga FC game. For the one of the first times this season, CFC underperforms in a draw instead of in a win or loss. Ancelin’s breakaway in the 81’ ends up being the difference.

We may be seeing some regression to the mean happening. You can’t play that lucky forever!

I duplicated this plot for the MLS Next Pro season. Chattanooga FC’s value makes no sense at all. 1.6 points above expected over a 6 match stretch is an insane run of form for the Blues.

It doesn’t feel sustainable, but it’s a hell of a ride while it lasts.

I’m at a work dinner in PA so threads like these are saving me right now

The ratio of blue to red in this video is heartwarming.

Update: Only 1 section (211) still has tickets available on the south side.

The atmosphere tonight is going to be unbelievable.

Last but not least, we have all of this data in table form. Current Elos, xG data, and a justice table. Chattanooga and Atlanta again stick out. St. Louis looks really good out of the gate.

Let’s see what the next month holds for the league!

Not every team has had their home opener yet, so take this one with even more grains of salt. I’m just putting it out there so we can compare it to what it will look like later in the season.

I’m anxious about the Chattanooga match tonight, so I cooked up a few xG plots for MLS Next Pro to help calm me down.

Interesting to see how lucky some teams are running, including Chattanooga (noisy sample of 3-4 games). North Texas surely cannot keep giving up over 3 goals per game.

I have never been more nervous about a soccer match than I am today. Sometimes a sporting event is about more than just the game. Today is one of those times.

Anyways, Go CFC!

Homework: Read this excellent piece by tomorrow. Good versus Evil is about to be personified as the Soccer Wars find their newest venue in the heart of the south.

There is only one team who should be supported. Chattanooga will always be blue.

I’m tired of hearing “it’s just Panama” from US fans. They’ve beat us in four of the last five competitive matchups, it’s time to put some respect on their name. There’s a clear top four in CONCACAF right now and we might be #4.

I will be a nervous wreck from 500 miles away…

With MLS NEXT Pro Matchday 2 about to kick off, I decided to run some calculations. Based on the Elo ratings that I derived a few months ago, I can forecast the match outcomes of MLSNP games.

Here are the implied odds for the matches tonight. Let’s see how the Tom Model does throughout the season!

I would still put a total solar eclipse over this for “most beautiful astronomical sights”, but it is definitely a close second!

We had gone unlucky outside of Hella and in Vík, but Höfn was good to us. Last time I was in Finland, it was May, so this is my first chance to see them. Very lucky!

I live in Pennsylvania, so I’ve seen weak aurorae. I was not prepared for how easily-identifiable the brightness and structure were!

The main thing that changes in person is the color. You can clearly identify each of these bands in the sky and even make out structure that dances and changes in real time.

However, the bands and color and structure all appear white. It’s very hard to identify colors unless the storm is strong.

I hadn’t even thought of that, but thank you!

This is also just the shot my iPhone picked up. I had my DSLR going and I CANNOT WAIT to see what it shows me when I get a chance to process the images!

I saw it from my home in Pennsylvania then, too, but I was not prepared for how different it would look tonight.

You could see a sheet of light from the more southern locations, but in the north, you can watch the bands dance and change and move over your head. Truly magical!!

Thanks! It’s definitely been on my bucket list ever since I started doing astronomy and astrophotography! Glad to check it off. It’s worth doing at some point! Hard to describe what the experience is like!

Fluourescence at work! I’ve studied it in so many classes. Neat to watch it play out in real time over my head.

Thanks! Yeah, this was our last night away from cloudy, bright Reykjavík, and we had not seen them yet. I was starting to worry that it wouldn’t happen. We got really lucky.

Even if we hadn’t seen them though, Iceland is spectacular! One of my favorite trips I’ve ever been on!

Wow, thanks for sharing! That looks so beautiful!

Thanks! I’m happy to share haha

Definitely special to see! I’ve seen them in Pennsylvania before, but always as a sheet. Never as the beautiful waving and dancing filaments!

After a week traveling around Iceland, we finally got lucky with the Northern Lights! Thankful to finally get clear skies and dense solar winds to witness an auroral light show.

I’ve seen a lot of astronomical events, but watching the aurorae dance above us one of my favorites that I’ve seen! 🔭

All PK shootouts count as draws for the purposes of this ratings system. CFC won a lot of shootouts to move up the table.

That lets them out-perform their Elo on the final table. Gotta start winning games not drawing them to boost the Elo…