Maybe it’s time I tried a different game…

please don't @ me like "actually cerium is unique among the lanthanides for its +4 oxidation state" ⚗️🧪 #chemsky

Yes we do. Thrusters don’t thrust in random directions. Also, it’s a comet.

#3IATLAS update: it’s still a comet. Now far enough from the Sun to get a decent view of its fairly complex tail structure (www.facebook.com/share/p/184n...). 🔭

If you get bored with driving the world’s smallest luxury sports car round the track, then you can take the world’s smallest luxury motor yacht out for a spin instead.

Stop Press: #3IATLAS is *still* a comet. 🔭 (www.virtualtelescope.eu/2025/11/07/i...)

Please be aware that there is absolutely no requirement that you be a member of @royalastrosoc.bsky.social for a UK astronomer to be eligible to join the IAU, the world body for professional astronomy — they have to pay your subscription anyway. 🔭

What’s the betting that the University’s senior management didn’t even consider this point, let alone quantify its likely impact, before deciding to “suspend” music.

I’d like to think that University Council had the independence and vision to decide that a university needs to teach modern languages and music to call itself a university, but sadly I doubt that they have the guts to actual, you know, govern. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Avi Loeb now appending to his atrocious a posteriori statistics some fan mail likening him to Galileo. He really has entirely lost the plot. (3I/ATLAS is a comet, by the way.) 🔭 avi-loeb.medium.com/post-perihel...

I’ve just got something in my eye. Manipulative bastards. m.youtube.com/watch?v=z1bR...

🏴🏳️ Track limits exceeded…

The best argument for Thanksgiving is that it tells companies when it becomes acceptable to start running their Christmas adverts.

A bit of culture at the New Art Exchange.

Having a bit of foolish fun asking my last digital electronics project how it is getting on with my current digital electronics project.

New landscaped circuit for my tiny remote-controlled car, complete with grandstand and pine forest. Driving still needs some work, though.

New landscaped circuit for my tiny remote-controlled car, complete with grandstand and pine forest. Driving still needs some work, though.

After being off for lengthy repair (which ultimately turned out to be just a dud power supply!), my telescope has finally returned, so first light tonight, and, aptly for the time of year, NGC 6946, The Fireworks Galaxy. 🔭

Too nice an afternoon not to get out, so a quick jaunt to Wollaton Hall. 🪶

Insurer: here is your renewal quote. Please be assured that we would offer the same to new customers. Me: I just got a quote from another company. It is £100 less. Insurer: here is a revised quote. It is £100 less. Nice to make £100 for 10 mins work, but irritating to have to.

Because the tiny remote control car wasn’t tiny enough, I decided to plant some even tinier trees for it to crash into.

Time for my annual 🎃 Halloween 👻 post

Did I mention that I have been having fun designing and building a truly tiny remote-control car?

Microcar update — I 3D printed a track to race around, complete with surrounding hills. Now I just need to learn to drive…

As someone who used to get my namesake Colorado congressman’s hate mail, Mr DeBlasio has my sympathies. www.semafor.com/article/10/2...

A new video we made, which focuses on one of my favourite objects in the night sky, Caldwell 4, aka NGC 7023, aka The Iris Nebula. It has quite a story to tell, which relates to why the sky is blue, and why some other things are red! 🔭🧪 youtu.be/aNJgQlJDPMY

Just in case anyone else has an overwhelming urge to build their own tiny remote-controlled car, here are all the instructions: github.com/astromikemer...

Micro remote-control car V1.1. New car design that does a better job of staying pointing in the right direction, thanks to a little floor engineering. Plus what every 3D-printed micro-car needs — some 3D-printed micro-traffic-cones.

I can’t put off documentation any longer, so time for some Fritzing…

Behold, in all its foolishness, version 1.0 of my micro remote-control car, driven by the tilt sensors in my phone. The combination of a @seeedstudio.com ESP32, a couple of linear motors, a 3D printer, and lots of fancy code written by ChatGPT, facilitates such nonsense.

Behold, in all its foolishness, version 1.0 of my micro remote-control car, driven by the tilt sensors in my phone. The combination of a @seeedstudio.com ESP32, a couple of linear motors, a 3D printer, and lots of fancy code written by ChatGPT, facilitates such nonsense.

Just what we need in astronomy: a metric that rewards those who never do any work, or whose names begin with “Z”. 🔭🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Even the coffee machine is patronising me this evening.

An autumnal stomp in Thieves’ Wood.

I think they might’ve got the sequence of events a little wrong.

The neighbourhood’s Jehovah’s Witnesses have gone digital.

A gap in the bad weather, so off to explore St Giles’ Church, Holme, built in the 15th century, then ending up on the wrong side of the Trent when the river shifted, so largely left alone ever since. Beautiful.

I am becoming increasingly concerned that the gravitational mass of Avi Loeb’s ego could perturb 3I/ATLAS right out of its orbit. avi-loeb.medium.com/the-scientif...

Higher Education: our sector is at breaking point. We can’t go on like this. Government: let’s index tuition fees to keep things exactly as they are for the foreseeable future. Spotted the problem? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

That would be a neat trick! (Though, to be fair, NHS at its best this morning: arrived at surgery at 8:44; seen at 8:45; totally painless blood draw; on my way home by 8:52.)

Considering a trip to Somerset, so been Fromescrolling.

More progress…

I have acquired a new vice. No, not that kind.

It’s just a shame that Universities UK didn’t have the competence to negotiate indexation when the fees came in, before a third of their value had been eroded by inflation. And that, as usual, no-one was held responsible for this catastrophic oversight. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Reporter: The radio signal you picked up was “…/ /././/…/……./…../…..”. What does it mean, Professor? Professor: That the aliens have the same circumferences to their circles as us. And they have eight fingers. #VeryShortSciFi

Another step forward. ChatGPT writes way better code than me!

What better way to spend a wet October Sunday afternoon?

Just to humour this for a moment: 1. The “fine tuning” is trivially explained by the rather obvious point that there are trillions of planets in the Universe, and we are, of course, living on one that happens to be randomly tuned just right. (www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10...) 🔭🧪

A little more 3D printing to create the beginnings of a base. Can you guess what it is yet?

Today’s stroll to another of those nearby spaces I’ve never visited before, Coppice Park. Note the large unnaturally flat area, which was a shooting range in the 19th century. To practice from 1000 yards, you’d have to fire along the road and over some gardens!