Tom Herring

October 21 not 28. No time travel involved

Comet C/2025 R2 SWAN imaged with a Celestron C14 edge hd Hyperstar and ZWO ASI 2600MC Pro at the Jack C Davis Observatory at Western Nevada College October 28, 2025. #astrophoto #astronomy #comets

Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon. Dwarf 2 smart telescope imaged from suburban skies in Fernley, NV on Friday October 17, 2025. #astrophotos, #astronomy

A New Paper Studied Whether NASA Actually Saves Money by Hiring Corporations to Build New Spacecraft, and the Results Are Embarrassing As it turns out, corporate contractors like SpaceX aren't anymore efficient at building spacecraft than the government.

Basically cost is mostly dependent on complexity of the spacecraft, not who builds it.
futurism.com/future-socie...

I remind students that we borrowed the name from mathematicians and it tells you which way the force points. The connection to another course and a practical side of the name explicitly stated usually gets at least a few nods of appreciation.

The Lagoon Nebula

Galaxies M81, a face on spiral, and M82, an edge on spiral.

Globular cluster M13.

Live stacked astrophotos taken July 26, 2025 at the Jack C Davis Observatory. The Lagoon Nebula, M81 and M82 galaxies, and globular cluster M13.

AI in Education: Strapping a Turbo Engine to a Horse’s Ass I recently did a keynote on the irreplaceable value of human skills to a room full of education tech directors. After the talk, I did a Q&A…

Former Google Chief Education Evangelist, Jamie Casap talks about the hard realities of the relationship between AI and education. #EduSky
jcasap.medium.com/ai-in-educat...

I'm Mar🐫 & I approve this message. 👍

#EcomomicBlackout

(image by @donkoclock.bsky.social) 🙏

Live updates: Trump cuts short talks with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy after Oval Office blow up President Donald Trump has cut short talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after he and and Vice President JD Vance berated the Ukraine’s leader in the Oval Office.

Donald Trump is treating the destruction of a democracy as a political show — throwing Ukraine to the wolves and doing a favor for Putin.

It's shameful and dangerous.

I've been to Ukraine, as have many Senate Republicans. I hope they speak up. Millions of lives are at stake.

It bears repeating.

Editorial: A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn’t Zelensky It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up. In the past several weeks, the U.S. leadership has demonstrate...

It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up.

So a week or so ago the department assistant asked what we wanted on the new nameplates for our office doors. Today my new nameplate was in place.

I'm on my way now. A meet up would be great. Let me know when/where.

Catch the #AAPTWM25 Registration Flash Sale! Get 15% off all registration types and workshops! No code necessary - discount applied at checkout. Sale ends on December 16 at 11:59 pm PT. Register now!
ow.ly/ksx150UpVV2 #AAPTConference #AAPTMeeting #ITeachPhysics

This is a brilliant animation. Definitely needed in intro astronomy/physics classes. #ITeachPhysics

I'll be there. #AAPTWM25 🎢

I teach astronomy at a community college and am the director of our campus observatory. I engage in astrophotography, double star astrometry, and some variable stay photometry.

Yes

SETI Institute logo. Text: Community College Student Internship. Seven artist's renderings along the bottom (left to right): A red nebula, the Moon over Earth, an asteroid belt, a moon in front of an ice giant, a small rocky body with the sun in the distance, an Earth-like exoplanet near a nebula, a star with small rocky bodies in front of it.

https://buff.ly/3YN4Bcg
The SETI Institute is pleased to offer three community college students the chance to intern with researchers during the spring semester of 2025. Travel expenses and a stipend will be provided. The deadline for applications is November 30, 2024. 🧪 👩‍🔬

Not officially an OPTYCs person but I know how to get this info to the TYC community. I'm the current CPTYC committee chair for AAPT.

@bot.astronomy.blue signup

Aurora from Dayton, NV. That's a whopper of geomagnetic storm to see anything this far south. I got some pics of the large sunspot complex earlier today but still didn't expect to see the sky light up tonight.