João Calhau

We're a third of the way through Haiti!! It would be awesome if we could keep the momentum up 🧪

I expect three Iron-man challenges back-to-back by the end of December. Thanks!

Congrats, though. And hope all goes well with your friend.

Mission accomplished! We've hit £1000 in just 12 days. Of course people can always donate more/there is no upper-limit. What next? Well, my sobriety has over 8 months to go, so that's my task. Maybe I can do some other challenge to build on this amount... @braintumourcharity.bsky.social

Bloody hell.

Amazing!

Way too late for that man. I've been dealing with this for more than 20 years. I appreciate the sentiment though! Hope all is well with you!

Fantastic image! Did you use dual band filters or did you use single narrow band filters with the color cameras? It's perfectly possible, but damn I admire your dedication in that case.

You've BEEN HERE!! Granted it was mostly at night in a Dark Sky reserve, but still!

It should actually have been the "Equatorial lands" because go too far south and you get the same problematic absence of sunlight, but that seemed too... specific for a fantasy rumour.

A mythical component of the electromagnetic spectrum that, some say, can be SEEN on the southern lands of planet Terra.

It is said that those who live in such lands take in the magical properties of "the Light of Sol" and become imbued with magic, skin the colour of bronze and resilience to colds.

Impossible. My brain chemistry has no other status than "full blown panic mode".

Hell yeah!

I have a complicated relationship with Weekends. They're technically two days, yet I spend half of the time despairing over the fact that the next day will be Monday and end up only resting for a day...

I told you they were insane bastards.

Love is international though.

Day 8/273

–The faint light of the star reflected in the frozen globes of unseeing eyes served as a reminder of reality, because in the end this was all that the ship was: A cold and silent grave, forgotten and left to forever drift through the darkness of space.

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#SciFiFri

Rapid, out of equilibrium metal enrichment indicated by a flat mass-metallicity relation at z~6 from NIRCam grism spectroscopy We aim to characterise the mass-metallicity relation (MZR) and the 3D correlation between stellar mass, metallicity and star-formation rate (SFR) known as the fundamental metallicity relation (FMR) fo...

Time to spotlight the first paper of my PhD student Gauri Kotiwale that appeared on arXiv last week: Rapid, out of equilibrium metal enrichment indicated by a flat mass-metallicity relation at z ∼ 6 from NIRCam grism spectroscopy
arxiv.org/abs/2510.19959

Let's hope so!

Also one of the reasons I don't use AI to process astrophotos: I have no idea what's happening. And the personal touch is what adds character to the photos, regardless of whether they are as "good" as with AI algorithms.

Back home tomorrow. Napoli was a pleasant enough place. Especially the people. And I definitely enjoyed the food. But looking forward to get home.

Day 5/273

a black cat 's face is against a black background with the letters nz above it ALT: a black cat 's face is against a black background with the letters nz above it

I couldn't find one of the back-lit iris of a cat in the dark so this will have to do.

I'd probably have the same result for the exact opposite reason: I'd be too oblivious to the scares because I was paying attention to the wrong stuff (like the jack-o-lanterns).

1.5°C: what it means and why it matters | United Nations The science is clear: to avert the worst impacts of climate change and preserve a liveable planet, global warming needs to be limited as much as possible and as a matter of urgency. Under the Par...

1.5°C: what it means and why it matters | United Nations share.google/oEm522fCUaD1...

a cartoon of garfield standing next to a man with the word spaghetti on the bottom right ALT: a cartoon of garfield standing next to a man with the word spaghetti on the bottom right

Also a consequence of my weight, but yes.

Awww you didn't sneak the Captain in!... Glad you enjoyed it, seems like a lot of fun.

You are more persistent than I am, that's for sure.

Fantastic - now at £600, or 60% of the target (I don't know why it's saying 59%, but whatever.) Many thanks to an anonymous donor who gave £100 🙏👍❤️

(This was dangerous to write, but I am banking on the fact that ~ 6 hours have passed so you've had time to cool down 🙃 )