Just realised. The literary obsession of Victorian Britain with crime, poverty, aristocratic decadence, and moral ambiguity, peaked in a few short years. 1886: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; 1887: A Study in Scarlet; 1888 the real Jack the Ripper murders and media frenzy; 1890: The Picture of Dorian Gray.

This one isn’t a selfie. Upper Belvedere, Vienna

I have never seen a queue like this for a hot dog stand. Must be v.good.

Well I did manage a bit of R&R in the end. Vienna Rathaus mit der grosse Christkindlmarkt

The title of this conference on Dark Skies is “collaborating with industry to share the wealth of the sky”. Well. Yes. That keyword “wealth” must encourage our commercial chums… #astronomy

Selfie demanded by @astroroyalscot.bsky.social who of course I obey in all things

The UN it seems is obsessed with arcs

Look Mum I’m at the UN

Queue to get in to a misty UN building

arriving at UN Vienna for conference on Dark and Quiet Skies.. don’t worry they said, we have your photo in our database.. but err… that ain’t me…

FAO @ghurford.bsky.social and @astroroyalscot.bsky.social here is the movie where you can see (amongst other things) me spending the night on Guajara with Brian May #astronomy www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/det...

Check out the latest Supermassive podcast episode, about Dark Skies and all them pesky satellites. With Izzie Clarke, @drbecky.bsky.social, @robertmassey.bsky.social, yours truly, and @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy, aka Sam Lawler. Then lobby your MP. shows.acast.com/the-supermas...

Don't forget Friday is spend nothing day

Calton Hill is such an amazing place, and there are so many astronomical stories to tell...

spread the word #astronomy

Polaris and satellite. Caught in guest mode on the Seestar S30 of @astroroyalscot.bsky.social in Meadowfield Park #astronomy

Good luck to the people of NYC. @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social has delivered in poetry. I hope he now can deliver in prose. It will be tough.

My chum Shauna

aaaghh more giant reflecting ghastliness in space #astronomy arstechnica.com/space/2025/1...

My latest @science.org water cooler piece, on the arrival of our 3rd interstellar visitor, 3I/ATLAS. As an extragalactic astronomer I am an amateur, but comets are amazing, and interstellar comets even more so. There may be 10^26 of them in the Milky Way www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #astronomy

Thank you @empirepoduk.bsky.social for the wonderful history of Gaza. As I listen I keep finding locations on Google Maps. Finding pre-war images of beautiful parks, beach resorts, shopping centres etc has also been eye opening - so much beauty, green spaces, and joy!

Trying to switch my clothing to natural fibres only and stop dumping microplastics in the environment ... but what to do with the old fleeces etc? Recycle? Landfill? Repurpose?

The donation box at the National Library of Scotland is almost all dollars. I guess we expect libraries and museums to be free and Americans don’t?

I had a lovely crowd at my Portobello Book Festival event on Sunday. Just got sent this picture. Thanks to @dougjohnstone.bsky.social for the conversation

Scarecrow family, Dirleton. Creepy or what?

celebrating 50 years since Martin Ward’s first paper

Booo Hooo is what I say

More office archaeology. My voting card from the Prague IAU, used for booting out Pluto #astronomy

@dougjohnstone.bsky.social is interviewing me at the Portobello book festival, Sunday Oct 5th 1030. Talking about Losing The Sky #astronomy Get tickets at the website portobellobookfestival.com

Inspiring conversation between Sally Magnusson and Tim Berners-Lee @timbl.bsky.social at Assembly Rooms tonight. Closed with "practice creativity, practice collaboration, practice compassion". Maybe TBL should make that a T-shirt and include it with his book "This is for Everyone"

Waiting for TBL

Curmudgeon Time. I hate the fact that my Apple devices now always have to be in a chosen "focus". You can't choose "no focus". I created a new one called "none" just for a larf but it's not the same.

Terry Riley Keyboard Study on guitar… lovely m.youtube.com/watch?v=daDB...

I love these toothpaste tabs. No plastic www.bambuliving.co.uk/shop/p/tooth...

I *think* my exhibition is still there..

From the ROE archives.. paper by Henderson dated Jan 3 1839 reporting the discovery of parallax, given to Captain Smyth. Henderson’s handwriting! #astronomy Take that, Friedrich Bessel

classical.music.apple.com/gb/album/564... Loving this album. Starting to think that jazz and rock have reached sterile dead ends, and the creative torch has passed back to “classical”

this is why the "oh, everything is gonna be ok after the midterms/next presidential elections" ppl are blowing my mind. what are you even saying, the destroyed satellites aren't going to un-destroy themselves and NASA doesn't have any spares lying around futurism.com/white-house-...

Office archaeology part 687: polaroid finding charts as of 1980s. Top half is plot of positions of bright stars at Schmidt plate real scale. Print this on transparent sheet. Overlay on plate. Take zoomed in polaroid. Stick on card with extra info. Take box full of hundreds to telescope…

Richard Green on light pollution ... clear accurate article #astronomy theconversation.com/light-pollut...

Next up on the office archaeology dig… in the Olde Days we used to send each other postcards requesting preprints of papers.. here is a small selection of what is finally going in the bin…

One of the more unnusual pieces of office archaeology… somehow I ended up with a film copy of an old BBC Horizon programme… from the 90s I think?

@ngc3314.bsky.social Honestly, the rubbish I have somehow failed to throw away for years…

You know, if enough of us say on the internet that it's important to wash your cybertruck with saltwater and lemon juice to preserve the finish, eventually ChatGPT will start telling cybertruck owners that.

The Nelson Monument has been uncovered after a brush and scrub up. The historic Time Ball dating back to 1853 will once again be dropping at precisely 1pm to allow sailors to set their ships' chronometers. @edinburghwh.bsky.social

Ice House, Doocharry, Donegal. Ice packed in here would last three years and was used to preserve salmon. The Marquis of Conyngham claimed rights to *all* salmon caught in the Gweebarra Estuary until 1906 when the villagers of Doocharry started a legal challenge which they eventually won.

They are darker but bigger

In 1982, as I started my RGO Fellowship, email was so exciting I kept and printed my entire first year’s worth. Mostly party invites… Note DecNet addresses, not TCP/IP. Email outside the UK Starlink network was still very tricky