Florent Renaud

Did you know that the VLT is only 12 km away from the Pacific Ocean? Humidity and clouds are usually stopped by the steep mountain range below the telescopes, which enjoy clear skies at 2635 m.

[A few photos I took from a plane a couple of weeks ago. I won't come any closer this time 😭 ]

That's reminds me that I have to clean my camera before going on a trip

The last observatories along my roadtrip in Chile. From above 5000 m, around the Cerro Toco in the Atacama desert. 🔭

YouTube video by FunkyFloFlo around the globe Extremely Large Telescope - Construction site

Construction site of the Extremely Large Telescope on top of Cerro Armazones (3060 m) - short drone video 🔭

youtu.be/zlYGN3GVc2Y?...

22 km from Paranal, the Cerro Armazones Observatory (3060m) is getting ready to welcome our biggest eye on the sky! The European Extremely Large Telescope 🔭 (with a primary mirror of 39 m diameter) will start operations in 2028! The construction site is already very... sorry... extremely impressive!

ESO observatory at Cerro Paranal (Atacama desert, Chile), from a distance 🔭

🔭 TAO is the highest observatory in the world! Its extreme altitude even allows for infrared observations.
The 26m-tall dome hosts a 6.5m telescope.
I barely saw it from the main road tonight. Just a tiny white dot...
(ALMA is on the plateau, just below. Not visible from here 😥)

Congratulations to Dr Segovia Otero!!! 🎉

and I'm ready to celebrate!

Álvaro Segovia Otero is defending his PhD thesis "Star formation in cosmological simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies". I cannot be there, but I support him remotely (and my remote location is not too bad compared to cold Sweden!)

How am I supposed to do proper astronomy with so much light in the sky? 🤪

[a few days ago, in the middle of the Icelandic highlands]

In gas-rich galaxies, the matter is not organized in the usual spiral patterns, but rather in a few massive gas-clumps. Such clumps, sometimes as big as dwar... Stars and interstellar medium in a gas-rich galactic disk - Simulation

When you're fed up showing always the same videos in conferences, it's time to make a new one!

In a gas-rich clumpy galaxy (maybe like the Milky Way 10 billion years ago), the gaseous structures are very complex and turbulent.

Not your grandma's interstellar medium. 🔭

youtu.be/aL6NjIkm7Dg

A large galaxy on the right, with two smaller companion galaxies to the left 10 o’clock & 9 o’clock. The large galaxy dominates the frame. It resembles a ghostly wheel with diffuse blue-white spokes revolving around a glowing core. The outer edges of the wheel are faint dots of blue and red, with some gaps in between. The bottom right edge is marked by a large 8-pointed star. The smaller galaxies on the left look very different from each other. The top galaxy appears to be constructed of the same pink, & blue speckles as the larger galaxy’s outer ring, with a similar light blue core. Its shape is less recognizable as a spiral; it looks like a chaotic oval smattering of dots. The galaxy below it glows reddish, but its nucleus and spiral structure are apparent, and we are looking at it face-on.

Beautiful JWST/NIRCam data processing of the Cartwheel galaxy and its surroundings by GiovanniAlbaniLattanzi (@GioAlbLat on X).
🔭 🧪

First segments of ELT’s main mirror arrive in Chile First segments of ELT’s main mirror arrive in Chile

18 done, 780 to go! 🔭

Happy new year to all!
Best wishes from Strasbourg, France

... for the safety of friends and colleagues I left behind... and who still feel they must talk anonymously to the press.

...so the harassment and bullying can continue. When I understood that the law and ethics would never prevail in this uni, I looked for an exit door (and got incredibly lucky to be offered my dream job). But I fear ...

How a bullying scandal closed a historic astronomy department Lund University in Sweden reorganizes in the face of years of accusations against two professors. Lund University in Sweden reorganizes in the face of years of accusations against two professors.

Lund Uni is one of these magical places where moving people around and looking away solve harassment and violence. It hasn't worked for 16 years and 37+ complaints, but you never know! Now astronomy has been shut down and astronomers have been expelled...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Inaugural lecture of Sandrine Courtin, the new Marguerite Perey chair at the @unistra.bsky.social Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS), on nucleosynthesis in massive stars!

(and presentation of the 2023 fellows, inc. yours truly 😉)

#usias #astronomy #strasbourg #france2030

I might have a slight impression of mild excitement to write a proposal. Is that a sign of seniority or senility?

Still so much to explore, and so little time
If you work in the white parts of these maps, I'm available for invited seminars ...

(If you work in the colored parts too)

tenpages.github.io/us-level/us....

Here's an excellent article on bullying in academia by Wyn Evans in yesterday's THES www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/bull...

This part seemed very familiar

Northern lights

#OTD exactly 8 years ago, I saw my very first #northernlights from a plane over Greenland. Many cold nights later, I think my photo techniques have slightly improved 😜