Happy Friday! This week's #PlanetaryPet is Fable. She is sweet and cuddly unless she is on patrol of her royal domain where she barks at coyotes, off-leash dogs, and noisy children. Fable lives with PSI Senior Scientist Jamie Molaro, who ranks Fable’s barking as “top of her class.”

Seen on our walk today. Hello turtle! 🐢

This timelapse captures the first light of day washing over the summit of Maunakea, where some of the world’s most advanced telescopes spend their nights exploring the Universe. #astronomy @keckobservatory.bsky.social 📸 International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/S. Goebel

Dealing with the heat of summer year after year has me wanting to live underground.

Taken before the completion of the observatory in 2013, this image succeeded in capturing the feeling of solitude experienced at the ALMA site, 5000 metres above sea level in the Chilean Andes. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1252a/ 🔭 #flashback  📷 ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org)

FYI: There's a better book that already used the title "Communion".

Here's hoping the Deep Synoptic Array becomes a movie star like its older OVRO siblings.

🌍 Did you know the greenest place on Earth depends on one of the most barren? The Amazon rainforest is kept alive by dust from the Sahara Desert — blown clear across the Atlantic Ocean. A thread on one of the planet's strangest connections.

In case you need to reform the ninja empire, there’s an appropriate telephone available for sale in northern Connecticut.

What’s it like to be a telescope working the night shift? This time-lapse movie documents several hours of observations during the propagation of the laser beam of the Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics System at Gemini South in Chile. #astronomy 📹: Gemini/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Paredes

Dang, take a breath y'all!

A picture of SPT and DSL from winterover Michel last week, with the moon starting to set. Even with the moon up and the red night vision lights on, you can still see the #aurora southern lights. @NSF @doescience #Antarctica #southpole

#RadioImageoftheWeek In the 1970s, the NSF Very Large Array was still under construction. In this aerial photo, a completed 25-meter antenna is being tested on the Master Pad and a headless antenna awaits a dish inside the Antenna Assembly Building, aka "the Barn." 📸 Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO

Stuff like this is genuinely cool.

Nesting swallows, snaking waterways, low-flying planes, great egrets and stringy, orange, parasitic plants. Baylands Nature Preserve has something for everyone. Always love working on these stories with @peterhartlaub.bsky.social 🦆 @sfchronicle.com www.sfchronicle.com/totalsf/arti...

Only a few weeks away from mid-winter, during the solstice on June-21. Weather has been unseasonably warm at #southpole, getting as high as -42 deg Fahrenheit last week. Here is a pic from winterover Michel, of SPT and DSL, lit by the moonlight. @NSF @doescience #Antarctica

Marshland texture study 🌾

From @noirlabastro.bsky.social: The constellation Gemini shares its name with the International Gemini Observatory telescopes in Hawai‘i and Chile. These twin 8.1-meter observatories give astronomers access to the entire sky. #astronomy

🐋🐋🐋

The wildfire prevention goats are out in full force at King Estate Open Space Preserve 🐐

Hello dragonfly :)

Every couple of years, Flamingos-2 comes down for a little maintenance break. This instrument at the Gemini South telescope is spending a few weeks in the lab for cryocooler replacement and component checks. #astronomy 📷 Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/S. Olivares

All shapes and sizes

Cold days and cruise ships

Hello ladybug :) 🐞

Photos from our Astrophotography Workshop on 4/18/2026. The ngVLA prototype looks pretty ✨stellar✨ under all those stars! 📸 1: Alin Sosnovici 📸 2: Vlad Rebek 📸 3: Scott Broadwell 📸 4: Lilla Hangay

When the dome opens, the night sky is the star of the show! 🌌 Inside NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory, the 8.4m telescope sits under an enormous dome. The open slit might seem too narrow, but it’s all we need to protect the telescope while giving full access to the sky. 🔭🧪

A gray whale feeds off the shores of Yerba Buena Island in the San Francisco Bay Thursday, May 21 @sfchronicle.com 🐋

We have a parade

Sorry everyone but this is pretty much just an iceberg appreciation account now.

Harbor housekeeping

On set in Sierra Negra, where the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) has been gathering data for the M87 Movie. Perched in front of Pico de Orizaba, the LMT sits in one of the most extreme, high-altitude observing sites on Earth. #M87MOVIE Photo Credit: Andrés Valle

Yo VIP, let's kick it.

Today’s camera roll 🌞

Arctic Dreams

And...LIFT 💪 Our summit team at NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory recently installed the 4th of 6 giant light-wind screens. 🔭🧪 These massive screens help block stray light and shield the telescope from winds when the dome is open — an important part of capturing sharp, clean images! 🌌

Crepuscular rays are seen here at dusk over the Gemini South telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF NOIRLab. #astronomy @vrubinobs.bsky.social @noirlabastro.bsky.social 📷: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Horálek

From @noirlabastro.bsky.social: This timelapse image shows the telescope’s Laser Guide Star in action. Gemini North is one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF NOIRLab. #astronomy 📷: Gemini/AURA/Joy Pollard

Timelapse of the IRAM 30-meter Telescope on Pico Veleta during a typical night of EHT observations. With its large collecting area and wide-angle optics, it’s one of the most sensitive single dishes in the array. Now filming: #M87Movie Video credit: Manuel Castillo-Fraile / IRAM 30m

Unlike in almost every way, the subjects of this image — ALMA antennas and a trio of vicuñas — are linked by their extremely hostile home environment, high up in the Andes. Discover how they withstand the harsh local conditions: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2619a/ 🔭 🧪 📷 S. Otarola/ESO

The bears are awake 🐻

I offer up a Benji for your morning scroll.

Recent house views 🏡

Some Pier 39 snaps while on Chonkers watch for @sfchronicle.com 🦭

Mood indigo

Roll camera at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), Chile. At high altitude with supplemental oxygen, the maintenance crew keeps 66 antennas operating as one system. Every dataset depends on the global network and the teams on the ground. #M87MOVIE

Why go to a laser show if you work at our VLT? 😎 The lasers create ‘fake stars’ used to measure the turbulence in the atmosphere. Observations are then corrected in real time with a special deformable mirror to obtain sharp images from the ground. 🔭 #flashback 📷 M. Lefranc/ESO

From @noirlabastro.bsky.social: Two telescopes, one mission to explore the sky. From Hawai‘i to Chile, the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF NOIRLab, can see almost the entire sky. #astronomy 📷: Gemini/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Kwon O Chul (Gemini South, on left) P. Horálek (Gemini North)

Roughly 6 weeks after $Sunset and we are in the darkest time of winter, here is a photo from winterover Michel of a nearly fully moon over the SPT this weekend! Observing weather has been great recently, with consistently dry clear skies #southpole #Antarctica @NSF @doescience