The view from my garden earlier in the week...

A few photos from the Lewes Bonfire night last Wednesday evening!

Initial conditions: m1=11.2 m2=134.6 m3=6.8 (solar masses) v1x=2.913 v1y=-3.732 v2x=-0.556 v2y=-5.034 v3x=-3.586 v3y=-0.75 (km/s) x1=-3.0 y1=17.0 x2=30.0 y2=-29.0 x3=18.0 y3=18.0 (AU from center) Music: Adagio for Strings – Barber

Initial conditions: m1=99.8 m2=102.0 m3=69.1 (solar masses) v1x=-2.668 v1y=-2.286 v2x=1.754 v2y=-1.251 v3x=2.368 v3y=1.79 (km/s) x1=17.0 y1=-27.0 x2=20.0 y2=25.0 x3=-9.0 y3=-7.0 (AU from center) Music: Liebestraum – Liszt

A nice sunset over Brighton on Thursday evening...

Actuellement deux comètes présentes dans notre système solaire semblent se tirer la bourre. Leur nom de code : C/2025 K1 ATLAS (à gauche) et C/2025 R2 SWAN (à droite). En réalité leurs trajectoires respectives sont très différentes. Reunion Island - 20 septembre 2025.

A stunning eruption of filament plasma from the Sun this morning! This size of event can cause strong aurora activity if directed towards Earth, but alas – this one was not. #spaceweather

Congratulations to everyone at Science Projects & the Observatory Science Centre (especially Abbie!) for getting a new 10-year lease agreed! This means that the Observatory will stay open to the public for another decade at least. science-projects.org/future-secur...

I did a bit of astrophotography on Saturday night. Not ideal conditions due to the humidity and Moon getting in the way, but it's always good to see some old favourites! Photos are of the Andromeda galaxy and the Lagoon & Triffid Nebulae, with a BA flight to Jaddah photobombing the view!

A Perseid meteor over Brighton, caught at around 1am on Thursday night / Friday morning (14/15th August). The bright star at the lower right is Capella.

I'm the opening speaker at this year's Herstmonceux Astronomy Festival, where I'll be talking about "Brilliant Binaries"! Full details at: www.the-observatory.org/events/astro...

The Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight, the 12 of August! You maybe able to see a shooting star ever minute or 2! But the Moon rises to spoil the view over the UK at 9.35pm tonight, so look as soon as it goes dark. Photo: Perseid meteor over me & Brighton at 4am on the 14th August, back in 2022.

These are always lovely but this one is something special

Initial conditions: m1=46.6 m2=34.3 m3=132.3 (solar masses) v1x=6.53 v1y=-1.538 v2x=4.982 v2y=1.112 v3x=3.082 v3y=0.135 (km/s) x1=-28.0 y1=9.0 x2=-14.0 y2=22.0 x3=10.0 y3=4.0 (AU from center) Music: The Shape of Things To Come (BSG) – McCreary

Views from my commute to work in Falmer, East Sussex, on Sunday.

A time-lapse movie of our @eucliduk.bsky.social stand at the @goodwoodrrc.bsky.social Festival of Speed Future Lab last weekend! Visitors were zooming into data from ESA's Euclid Space Telescope, and using their body to make a gravitational lens to learn how astronomers search for dark matter.

A massive thank-you to the couple who leant me a electric pump at the end of last weekend's Goodwood Festival of Speed! Thanks to their help, I was able to cycle back to Chichester and get the train home with only a slight delay!

It’s Day 3 at the the @goodwoodrrc.bsky.social #FestivalofSpeed Future Lab. Our #HumansOfEuclid have had an early start, back and ready to share the mysteries of the dark Universe all over again! 🌌🕸️

And that’s a wrap for another day…see you tomorrow #FestivalOfSpeed!

UKIRT 🔭, RIP. www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2025/06/27/h...

June & July is the best time of the year to see glow worms in the UK! These are my old photos of glowworms in Brighton. Numbers of these nocturnal beetles are falling in south-east England by 3.5% each year, due to light pollution making it increasingly difficult for males to find females.

Initial conditions: m1=32.1 m2=42.6 m3=24.6 (solar masses) v1x=-5.436 v1y=-2.297 v2x=1.376 v2y=-5.835 v3x=-0.614 v3y=0.951 (km/s) x1=34.0 y1=-24.0 x2=2.0 y2=-30.0 x3=22.0 y3=15.0 (AU from center) Music: Lost (The Expanse) – Shorter

Accidental find in planetarium show could shift scientists’ understanding of our solar system edition.cnn.com/2025/06/10/s... - Fun to hear about this result at a workshop I recently attended

Happy Solstice all! On 17th June 2025, we had the earliest sunrise of the year in Brighton, with sunrise at 04:45 BST. The longest day is on the 21st, lasting 16 hours and 32 minutes in Brighton. But the latest sunset is not until the 25th June, when the Sun sets at 21:18 BST over Brighton.

Wednesday's Sun over Brighton, in both white light and h-alpha.

A few photos from my Monday evening cycle along Brighton's coastline...

Initial conditions: m1=104.0 m2=109.3 m3=27.6 (solar masses) v1x=1.346 v1y=2.178 v2x=5.548 v2y=-5.437 v3x=-5.128 v3y=5.042 (km/s) x1=31.0 y1=34.0 x2=23.0 y2=-27.0 x3=-24.0 y3=15.0 (AU from center) Music: Memories of Green – Vangelis

Badgers visiting me a few evenings ago...

Seeing Sea Eagle eagles (!) in Norway, 31st March 2025. (these photos aren't too bad, considering that I was using the wrong, mid-range lens)

A few photos from my visit to the North Cape of northern Norway last month.

Aurora over Brighton (just!) at 22:15BST this evening.

Welcome to our page! This Instagram is a community-led account, showing our support to the Observatory Science Centre, following the announcement that their lease is not being renewed beyond the 2026 year. If you have not yet sign and shared our petition to reverse this decision, PLEASE do so.

My favourite photo from visiting Utah last September - the Milky-way & zodiacal light. That beautiful faint glow from the horizon upwards is zodiacal light, caused by sunlight reflecting off dust in our solar system left behind by comets. It's been 25 years since I last saw zodiacal light!

What's the use of a 10 minute power-cut on a cloudy night?! It did demonstrate that the majority of light pollution seen over Woodingdean originates from Brighton city, though. #woodingdean #brighton

A few shots from this evening's murmuration of starlings by Brighton's Palace Pier.

Today's lecture demos involved demonstrating electric fields using a plasma ball and holding various light sources nearby to watch them light up!

After an incredibly busy 5 months, I've finally found time to look back at my photos from September, when I visited the Zion National Park in Utah, USA. I did spot a few Desert Bighorn sheep while I was there.

It's exactly 6 years this week since I spent 10 days teaching in Accra, Ghana, where I was doing exactly the same job as I do at the University of Sussex - teaching physics & astronomy to both pupils and their teachers. We did an average of two events per day, so we definitely made the most of it!

Wonderful 1950 letter in which J. Robert Oppenheimer very patiently explains to Eleanor Roosevelt that flying saucers do not exist--and tells a funny story about human fallibility, and how all the Los Alamos scientists tried to get the local Air Force base to shoot down a UFO.

Venus, the crescent Moon (illuminated by plenty of Earth shine!), and even Neptune! As seen from Brighton at 6pm this evening. #DoLookUp #NAW2025 #NAW #Moon #Venus #Neptune

Random old photo of one of the badgers in my garden under the stars. I was reminded of it because I've been asked to display it on the screens in the student centre at work!

Sunset views over the English channel last Thursday.

Saturday evening's sunset over Brighton...

Initial conditions: m1=23.3 m2=67.3 m3=70.5 (solar masses) v1x=5.086 v1y=-6.139 v2x=2.029 v2y=3.211 v3x=-5.704 v3y=-0.994 (km/s) x1=-4.0 y1=10.0 x2=-8.0 y2=-12.0 x3=19.0 y3=25.0 (AU from center) Music: Gymnopédie No. 1 – Satie

A green flash of the Sun that I spotted earlier in the week...

The view from my garden last week. The snow has almost completely gone now!

Another quote for the media! Today I was talking to Newsweek about the impending outburst of T Coronae Borealis... www.newsweek.com/t-coronae-bo...

Although the winter solstice and the clocks were burnt 10 days ago now, our mornings have only been getting lighter since yesterday (30th), when we had the latest sunrise of the year (for the UK south coast).

The final day of my work advent calendar - day 24! app.myadvent.net/calendar?id=... The last outreach of 2024 was an astronomy observing evening. Unfortunately it was cloudy, but the students still enjoyed themselves with a visit to our astrochemistry lab & a dark matter lecture! Happy Christmas!

The penultimate day of my work advent calendar - it's day 23! app.myadvent.net/calendar?id=... I've done so much teaching this year, with 3 modules in the autumn term alone (2 of which were new to me). It's always a mix of relief and melancholy at the end of a teaching term.