My god, Octavia Butler, just miss ONCE

Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) are inching closer to each other every night. They will be closest on the evening of June 9th. It is quite striking when 2 bright objects get so close in the night sky. 🔭🧪

Crucial Track for May 30, 2026: "I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty Today's prompt: What is a song that makes you think of your first job? https://www.crucialtracks.org/profile/parag/20260530

Crucial Track for May 29, 2026: "Pasaydaan" by Lata Mangeshkar https://www.crucialtracks.org/profile/parag/20260529

Google has been splashing ads for their AI everywhere on streaming platforms. Can’t believe that they are highlighting the most meaningless and inane responses delivered by AI as something great!!!

On Strava app, every new workout used to get analyzed using its AI version to provide insights into the workout. Recently, they changed that functionality. Now, the user has to interact with the app and ask for an AI-based workout analysis. I suppose the compute costs are adding up quickly.

Crucial Track for May 26, 2026: "Not Dark Yet" by Bob Dylan https://www.crucialtracks.org/profile/parag/20260526

Drove this morning to NJ and we were totally surprised by lack of traffic on I-95. I guess people are hurting due to high gas prices and not traveling.

Crucial Track for May 23, 2026: "Sugar Magnolia" by Grateful Dead #CrucialTracks https://www.crucialtracks.org/profile/parag/20260523

Introduce yourself with 10 bands/musicians you’ve seen live! Pink Floyd U2 Bruce Springsteen (+/- E-street band) Bob Dylan The Dead Tom Petty and the heartbreakers Elton John Sarah McLachlan Mark Knopfler Billy Joel

Saw someone with a tattoo on their forearm saying “You Are Great!!!”. Nice to have an affirmation like that available to you all the time.

Today’s high temp (89F) is 23F higher than the average high (66F) for May 20th in our area.

The Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) is a large face-on asymmetric spiral galaxy at about 21 million light years in Big Dipper. It is 70% larger than our Milky Way and contains more than a trillion stars. 🔭UltraCat108; 📷ASI2600MC-Duo; total exposure: 2 hours (40×3 min) #astrophotography

"The U.S.’ economic prosperity has been built in no small part on its world-leading success in science and technology. The ingredients of that success are generous federal research funding, intellectual freedom, and openness to foreign talent. Remove these ingredients at the nation’s peril." 🧪

Morning sleep, you sacrificed! Mmm. Through glass eyes, the traveler revealed its long tail. To the naked eye, hidden it remains; modest, the comet is. Now, a trial of fire it faces. Survive the Sun’s embrace, it must, to shine in the twilight. 🔭

One of the few orchids that grow in New England, pink ladies slippers, are blooming right now. These can only be seen in the wild. They can’t be domesticated as they need a certain kind of fungus in the soil to grow. The rain brought out a lot of these newts as well.

During my bike ride to work, I was huffing and puffing while going up on a hill. Another bicyclist came from behind and said as he passed me, “You’re doing great! Don’t look at me, I am cheating”. That was nice of him as he was on an e-bike.

As it has been a tradition for the last decade+, this was my birthday ride. It was an enjoyable ride mostly on beautiful quiet backroads with minimum traffic and cloudy (52F) weather with no wind. strava.app.link/9nVrNgY942b

The Coma cluster aka Abell1656 in Coma Berenices. Amazing to think that there are more galaxies than individual stars in this photo. About 1000 galaxies at 320 million light years. 🤯🤯🤯 UltraCat108; ASI2600MC-Duo; total exposure: 2.5 hours 🔭🧪 #astrophotography

Happy 100th birthday, Sir David Attenborough! What an amazing and fantastic life you have lived! Thank you for articulating the beauty of nature and making countless hours in my and my children’s lives truly enjoyable and full of wonder.

Most relatable comic of all time?

So many satellites in this stack totaling only 5 minutes of exposure!!! Glad that the comet was bright enough to show up here. Images taken with Nikon Z6 attached to Rokinon 135mm f/2 at f/2.2 🔭🧪 #astrophotography

My most favorite flowering tree of the Spring season is Eastern Redbud. Such delicate pretty flowers with that fantastic color!

For decades it’s been well understood that learning by doing is essential. If you are not doing the thing—writing the essay, solving the math problem, reading the book—you aren’t learning. Public education should not be all about learning to use a company’s products.

Finished reading [Orbital](hardcover.app/books/orbita...) by Samantha Harvey. It was an excellent read! I really enjoyed it. It is fiction and also non-fiction. Beautifully written prose that is quite poetic at times.

It is the last day of April and we have a rainy, cold day (50F). Where is the Spring that was supposed to arrive a month ago?

I was reading the news this morning and I was so glad that I renewed my passport a couple of months ago. I’ll not be wasting a piece of duct tape.

Current lock screen on my phone

As I [biked to work](www.strava.com/activities/1...) this morning, I felt that some sniffles were starting up. Cursed myself for not taking allergy medicine but that didn't last. I think the pollen that I am allergic to isn't out yet. I’ll have to worry about this when birches flower later in May.

The Whirlpool galaxy (M51) is a classic grand-design face-on spiral galaxy. Located at about 30 million light years in the direction of constellation Canes Venatici, it Interacts with the smaller companion galaxy triggering new star formation. 🔭 UC108; 📷 ASI2600MC-Duo; total exposure: 3.5 hours

On this beautiful clear Spring evening, Venus and Pleiades are close enough in the sky to image them together. The object below Venus to its left is Uranus. 🔭🧪 #astrophotography Nikon Z6; Rokinon 135mm at f/2.2; 2 sec exp

Finished making vacation plans. Put all the details in the calendar. Feels good to have this to look forward to.

I should plan a trip to Washington and take lots of pictures of the National Mall before this gets built.

Watched “Project Hail Mary” and liked it. It was well made - didn’t stray much from the book. Stratt was my favorite character in the book and same with the movie.

Finished reading “Project Hail Mary” and loved it. Tomorrow, we go to watch the movie in a theater. Hope it will be as good as the book. A lot of this book is first person narration with no other individuals and that can be hard to turn into a film.  hardcover.app/books/projec...

Got up early this morning to catch Comet 2025 R3 (PANSTARRS). I could easily spot it with binoculars but not with naked eyes. It has such a long tail. Hope it survives its encounter with the Sun and puts on a good display in the evening sky. 🔭 #astrophotography Nikon Z6; Rokinon 135mm f/2; 30×20s

If he doesn't want to do his job, why doesn't he just quit?

Needle galaxy (NGC4565) is about 40 million ly away towards the constellation Coma Berenices. It is one of the best and brightest example of an edge-on spiral galaxy. 🔭 WO UC108 📷 ASI2600MC-Duo Exposure: 20×3min

The weekend was so busy and eventful that I am having a hard time remembering what I was doing at work last week. 😬

These days I am using solar energy to power my nightly 🔭 astronomy sessions.

Looking forward to the coverage of Integrity landing this evening.

Dark shark nebula (LDN1235) is a faint and dark nebula as its name suggests. It is made of dark dust created in the cooler atmospheres of giant stars. It spans about 15 ly across and is located in the constellation Cepheus at about 650 ly away. Total exposure: 80 x 3 minute 🔭 #astrophotography

Last night, I tried out the “plan” feature in ASIAir. Set it up to go to 3 different targets, start autoguiding and shoot for an hour or two. Over the last few sessions I have gotten comfortable with the 🔭 moving by itself without me watching. Can’t wait to process the images when I go home today.

Right now, I am sure the astronauts on Integrity spacecraft are wishing that they are not en route retuning to the Earth.

OMG!!!

I can imagine how a bipolar person feels as I am going through the news today. I am absolutely elated with all the news and images from the Artemis mission and I am depressed the very next moment as I see the ravings of a lunatic.

Moon eclipsing the Sun with some Earthshine and some planets visible in the dark sky. This didn’t look impressive at all during the live shots taken from the GoPro mounted on Integrity’s solar panel.

What a beautiful picture of earth setting on the moon - from the Integrity crew!!!

science lady is excited

That was such a wonderful view from Integrity when it was close to the farthest point from earth with the crescents of moon and earth close together.