Paul Leyland

As always, I forgot the 🔭 again. Doh!

A star field surrounding a line of seven images of Barnard's Star, each of which were taken one year apart from 2019 to 2025. Those images demonstrate that Barnard's Star is moving remarkably quickly against the background sky.

This stack shows the proper motion of Barnard's Star over the period 2019-25, or 5.96 years to be precise. My measurements give a proper motion of -0.603"/yr in RA and 10.503"/yr in Dec whereas Gaia DR3 has -0.80155 and 10.362394. Agreement is satisfactory IMO.

Super-Earth, Super-Tectonics? Turns out there's more than one way to "plate" a planet!

From Diana Solano-Oropeza @dsolanooropeza.bsky.social : Turns out there’s more than one way to “plate” a planet! 🔭✨☄️
astrobites.org/2025/10/01/s...

Not sure a telescope is ideal for watching a meteor shower ...

Looking at the moon, star clusters, planets, double stars, sure.

I think he meant to write "Vega".

That may be true but here in Europe at least virtually all credit card transactions are made with chip&PIN and I don't believe they are especially sensitive to magnetic fields.

Computer disks on the other hand ...

New evidence confirms Yorkshire North Sea asteroid impact Geologists say an asteroid hit the North Sea near Yorkshire more than 43 million years ago.

New evidence proves North Sea asteroid impact. 🔭 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

No reason why we can't do both. Or all three if you regard orbital and Martian colonies as separate.

What is OU in this context? Open University? Oxford University? Something else?

I was a long-term member of OUAS --- Oxford University Astronomical Society --- but that was decades ago and it may have changed its name since then.

Sky & Telescope magazine are now charging to look at articles on their website. However this means I will no longer be posting any links to their site. A bit disappointed. I've enjoyed reading their articles and weekly sky guide. 🔭 🧪

A screenshot of the abstract of the paper, reading: The Moon is our future. It may seem like a chimera with a projected cost in excess of 100 billion$, and counting, dispensed on ARTEMIS with little to show to date. However it is the ideal site for the largest telescopes that we can dream about, at wavelengths spanning decimetric radio through optical to terahertz FIR. And it is these future telescopes that will penetrate the fundamental mysteries of the first hydrogen clouds, the first stars, the first galaxies, the first supermassive black holes, and the nearest habitable exoplanets. Nor does it stop there. Our lunar telescopes will take us back to the first months of the Universe, and even back to the first 10 second after the Big Bang when inflation most likely occurred. Our lunar telescopes will provide high resolution images of exoplanets that are nearby Earth-like 'twins' and provide an unrivalled attempt to answer the ultimate cosmic question of whether we are alone in the universe. Here I will set out my vision of the case for lunar astronomy over the next several decades. This paper was presented at Lemaitre2024, International Conference on Black Holes, Gravitational Waves and Space-Time Singularities (June 17-21, 2024, Castel Gandolfo, Specola Vaticana)

Cosmology: The Moon is our Future

The limits of cosmology, by Joseph Silk
arxiv.org/abs/2509.08066 🧪 #Cosmology

Behind a paywall. Is it available elsewhere?

New Arabic records from Cairo on supernovae 1181 and 1006 The remnant of the historical supernova SN 1181 is under discussion: While the previously suggested G130.7+3.1 (3C58) appears too old (3000-5000 yr), the unusual star IRAS 00500+6713 with a surroundin...

Thanks to @slavkobogdanov.bsky.social for pointing me to this really cool 🔭 history paper! arxiv.org/abs/2509.04127

I hope everybody understands how f**king dangerous and terrifying this is.

Credit: @sandcrawler1990.bsky.social

This image speaks for itself...

Forgot the #astro

Herstomonceux Observatory future secured for decade with new lease The 10-year lease with Queens University, Canada, pledges to increase visitors to the attraction.

Good news, for the next decade anyway.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Many people don't much want to go to the US anyway. he dislike goes back a long way but the recent decision of USG to check every single visa holder for evidence of thoughtcrime on social media has only made things worse.

How to lose friends and influence people: www.bbc.com/news/article...

e-petitions e-petitions

The Australasian Dark Sky Alliance have created a petition to get the Aust. Govt to create legislation that limits light pollution and preserve Australia's Dark skies. Important for human health, wildlife and #Astronomy!

Australians can sign here: www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/...

🔭☄️

what a fantastic discovery !!!

🧪☄️🔭

Gosh where to even start!
🤯Jupiter and Venus are very far away from Earth. They are definitely not shining in front of the moon! 😂
↙️ Yes Jupiter & Venus are close in the sky today if you're awake at ~4am, but tonight the moon is far off to the right.
🤓 On Aug 20th they'll be closer ↘️
📷:Stellarium 🔭🧪

I have imaged the Cosmic Horseshoe. Remarkably enough it is with range of amateur astronomers. However, it is not an easy target.

Thanks for the correction. I am very poor at distinguishing between the various sauropod species.

The illustration may, er, illustrate a problem. The apatosaurus went extinct many million years before the KT event.

Delving into LLM-assisted writing in biomedical publications through excess vocabulary Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can generate and revise text with human-level performance. These models come with clear limitations, can produce inaccurate information, and reinforce existing biases.

The appearance of large language models caused a drastic shift in the vocabulary of academic writing, according to an analysis in #ScienceAdvances of more than 15 million biomedical abstracts published from 2010 to 2024.

Learn more:

As would I. A probe to alpha Cen will take decades even if the technology were available right now.

The much better surveys will take place anyway, despite the present US adminstration's efforts to gut the US scientific capabilities. Europe, China, India, Japan et al. will continue regardless.

Even more reason to send a fly-by mission. Recent designs for laser-powered light-sail craft suggest that >0.1c could be reached with near-future technology, meaning close-up observations could well be made within the lifetimes of people alive today --- by 2100 say.

About twice a year, usually during the day time with a light panel immediately in front of the OTA and the dome closed.

A completed Lego Milky Way galaxy kit. The colour scheme is blues, pinks, purples and white .

A zoomed in part of the Lego Milky Way galaxy kit. It shows a sign that says “You are here.”

Finally completed the Milky Way.

Have spotted heaps of transients already :)

#Astronomy