Last Saturday I spent the day at this year's European Astrofest in London. I learnt a lot, eat too much and tried not to spend a fortune on new toys. These are my reflections on the day ... bobreflected.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-...

I've read innumerable books during our long, wet, cloud-covered ongoing winter. It's always my aim to write a brief review of a book after I finish it - but I now have a daunting backlog, and the compressing greyness has undermined all motivation.

@jdhowgego.bsky.social Just listened to your talk at Astrofest - lovely 🙂. Thank you.

Let's hope others follow in their steps.

In a former life I spent several years as a member of the STFC's Science Board - including during a period of proposed severe cuts. Prof. Dougherty is, rightly and wisely, following a playbook established in the past. To quote one of her predecessors in the role: "show them the bloody stumps". I.e.

I had a wonderful time at a local primary school's space evening. I was there as a member of a local amateur astronomy club - sekas.co.uk A couple of hundred children and parents - and many committed teachers - engaged enthusiastically, despite the clouds.

Dear 24hr News Cycle, Please sleep through your alarm, lie in, and leave us alone, at least for one day. Regards, Humans, just about hanging on.

AI presents a huge danger not just to our environment and privacy and industry and wallets. As Mara shows, its potential for sexual abuse is extremely disturbing... and it's been put to that use already.

Astronomer Elisabetha Hevelius was born 379 years ago today. She married astronomer Johannes Hevelius at 16, and after his death it was she who published the Prodromus Astronomiae in 1690, a rigorously computed collection of 1564 star positions. #WomenInSTEM #AstroSky 🧪🔭

I would love for the rest of us in NE to follow suit. We also need so much more education for homeowners on better practices on this... I was up in Katahdin two years ago and our dark sky views were frequently ruined by cabin night-long floodlights shining up and out.

Ursula K. Le Guin, spitting truth.

Complex life on planets orbiting the galaxy's most common stars may be unlikely phys.org/news/2026-01...

Around two-thirds of glass ends up in landfills. Instead, they could help restore coastal ecosystems. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/recycled-glass-fend-off-coastal-erosion

Time for me to take a Christmas break: but before I sign off let me wish you all much joy 🙂

Now that's an interpretation I can get behind 🙂 #astronomy #astrophotography #darkskies #lightpollution

"All the mess and frustration and the tangents and mistakes and learning and everything else that goes into actually making a thing from nothing adds up to something that you miss with a prompt. It adds up to The Work." Yes, total empathy from me 🙂

I've written & uploaded the fourth and final blog post in a series which covers the last few years of my deep sky #astrophotography - this one's on galaxies observed from my back garden. It's been an encouragement to look back and be able to see progress 🙂 bobreflected.blogspot.com/2025/12/leav...

@daveatcogs.bsky.social Did you see this?

A rare day of clear skies so a golden opportunity to play with a new toy: a hydrogen_alpha filter. It's designed to work with one of my telescopes to reveal prominences and the detail of the violent 'surface' as it's affected by the magnetic field and other forces. Not bad for a first trial run 🙂.

The third of four planned blog posts: this one on nebulæ of one sort or another. (Taken together, the four posts will constitute a log of my deep sky imaging to date.) bobreflected.blogspot.com/2025/12/begi... #astrophotography

Watch this amazing zoom video of a spring 👀😲 #iTeachPhysics #Science 🧪

Interesting piece: I learnt a lot, which I love. Also, a great sentence within the opening paragraph which explains why experts like @rhiggitt.bsky.social are good to have around 🙂

Have you e-signed @sciencecentres.bsky.social's letter to the UKGov? Today is your last chance before it goes to Downing St! Join 1000s of us in calling for fairer funding for the UK's science centres currently excluded from UKGov infrastructure funding.🧪🔭 ✍️ www.sciencecentres.org.uk/openletter20...

I love this, just love it 🙂

"Getting a robot to use the treadmill for you at the gym doesn't make you any fitter" You don't say?

Researchers turned to a citizen science project to better understand how light pollution affects singing time in birds. https://www.snexplores.org/article/birds-singing-longer-light-pollution?utm_source=hootsuite&utm_medium=bluesky&utm_campaign=snesnsocial

Has anyone read my beautiful (credit to my lovely publisher), calming, life-affirming book? Do you think it would make a nice Christmas gift? Can you help me let people know about it? Here it is: geni.us/ThePlaceImin 🎁

"The BBC isn’t perfect – but it’s ours. If we don’t defend it now, we may lose a cornerstone of British democracy."

This a big deal: "China’s carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months" China's economy has grown by ~5% in the last year, so this comprehensively debunks the idea (again) that emissions are tied to growth. So yes, faster progress needed, but this is how you turn the corner.

Active regions on the Sun this afternoon, as seen from my garden. We're only just beyond the peak of the solar activity cycle and it shows in the number and size of the active regions - lots of sunspots 🙂 (Taken through a neutral solar filter using my pet robot - a Dwarf3 smart telescope.)

Giveaway! 🥳🤩🎉🎉 I’ve got a very special gift to give away to 2 people!! Each set contains: a copy of my book, 2 cards with space to add your own noticings on the back and a bookmark! To enter: share this post, reply with what you like about November and tag one person you’d also like to get a set. 😀📚

Back in July, before another grey Autumn settled in, it was my privilege and pleasure to give a talk at the South East Kent Astronomical Society: sekas.co.uk. I promised a follow-on blog post - notable by its absence! In lieu I added a voice-over to the slides: youtu.be/HiaBa32FpxA #astrophography

After nothing since January, two image-centred blog posts within a week (with more waiting in the wings). The first was on binary star systems I've imaged from my garden whereas this second one goes up in scale to star clusters. #astronomy #astrophography bobreflected.blogspot.com/2025/11/clus...

I don’t like to ask but - how DO you get followers in this place? If it helps, here’s a pic I took of Mercury crossing the Sun! I post space things and am the creator of skycalpro - a personalised calendar of stargazing events. #FollowersWanted #Astronomy

There is a writer's aphorism: 'I write in order to know what I think'; I buy into the sense of that. After and absence of several months, here is the first in a planned short series of blog posts in which I try to catch up with my hobby of astrophotography😉 bobreflected.blogspot.com/2025/11/bina...

I created skycalpro.com to help you find out what is happening in the night sky over your home tonight. It’s free - check it out :)

Great. More space junk (and space junk-generating events) - aviationweek.com/space/satell...

The Sun and its spots as of yesterday morning. (Not the best image in the world, but I have an open #astronomy observing evening coming up and wanted to see whether my decade-old tablet would run my Dwarf3 'robot'. Evidently it does 🙂. It'll be good to have a larger screen to show around.)

I sat in my primary school classroom - heated, back then, by a coal-burning cast-iron stove - and copied from the chalk board: "The Russians have put a satellite into space. Aren't they clever." Much has changed in the intervening years, except human nature.

Please, please let it spread southward.

I couldn't stop myself having yet another bash at processing my M31 Andromeda data from last year. This really is a tricky target, but I'm learning a lot ... I hope.

Showed folks #comet #C/2025A6Lemmon through my 80x20 binos tonight (iphone eyepiece pic added) but some seemed more excited to see a string of satellites passing overhead. I do fear for our skies -a canvas for drive-thru entertainment and a “fast food” spectacle seems to be its future 😩 #astronomy 🔭

Lovely post, on one of my favourite open star clusters - associated with many names (so, LotR obvs. 😉). (I wrote about the cluster a while back: bobreflected.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-...)

My grandsons who, like many of their friends, rely on their smartphones to listen to music, asked to hear something on my 1970s analogue setup. I was happy to oblige. However, my wife thought a fuller demonstration of the system would be good. They'd never felt music through the floor before ... 😉

I've finally got my head back in gear enough to look at some unprocessed data from a clear night way back in August. This is a second attempt at the Bubble Nebula (NGC7635) but my first use of 'star-removal' software to avoid the dull-glowing hydrogen from being swamped.

while I acknowledge that LLMs do have some uses for stuff like “producing code with knowledgeable human supervision,” this perfectly reflects how I feel about using it for my own creative work

Accurate.