This afternoon's hard work:

Ah, to hearken back to a day when shirtless, whisky-drinking astronomers chased totality to the ends of the Earth:

A well-meaning outreach initiative and a fire nearly doomed an eclipse expedition. There’s a great article in the Aug edition of @skyandtelescope.bsky.social on the July 18, 1860 eclipse that occurred 166 years ago today. The expedition to see the eclipse was led by astronomer Warren de la Rue.

I had some chocolate. Yum.

Beyond the Perseids: 6 meteor showers worth watching this summer www.space.com/stargazing/m...

Tom Baker during "The Stones of Blood". #TomBaker #DoctorWho #FourthDoctor

With all due respect to Mr Nolan, the perfect adaptation of the Odyssey has already been made.

Just adding this as a public service in case anyone missed it in the pandemic m.youtube.com/watch?v=qe7k...

There's a statue in Chatham and ever since I can remember, has always had traffic cones stuck on it's head. I'm talking late 70s/80s and the tradition continues to this day.

Do you have a copy of the Reader's Digest Folklore, Myths and Legends? I've written about it for the @theobserveruk.bsky.social this weekend. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

It’s a dreamy end of the day for our Muscovy duck Moja

Smudge is cat of the day or is she? #caturday

Here's your judgmental goose of the day.

oh, I see the polluter's best mate suddenly has a problem with 'filthy air'

Scary. www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

And here's the theme and video. It's an ace trailer for the series. Brian May and Eddie Van Halen. What could be better? youtu.be/5lC54X5Gc1Q?...

Do you like puppets, sci-fi and anime? Then this series from the early 80s is right up your street. It's fab. And the end titles song was covered by the great Brian May. youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Jodrell bank has always been a danger since the 80s where that bloke fell from it.

From NASA: Mars in motion! ⏩ While on its way to explore a mysterious, metal-rich asteroid, our Psyche spacecraft sped by Mars for a gravity assist to pick up speed and adjust its trajectory. As it approached the planet, it captured this series of high-res snaps. More: go.nasa.gov/4ps5pQD

I have the theme tune in my head now.

Why is the sea water off Isle of Man orange and is it toxic? 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Born on this day 1908 - Barry Gray.

“What will the Lovell Telescope discover/enable 20 yrs from now? I can’t tell you, and that’s the point. It will either be something extraordinary that none of us can yet predict, or we will defund it and leave Cheshire with a rusting monument to unfulfilled potential and discoveries never made.” 🔭🧪

landslides on Pluto, y'all! ➡️ www.space.com/astronomy/pl...

WOW 🤩 NGC 300: A Cosmic Gemstone with Stars and Gas Clouds - today's #apod 📸: Team Ciel Austral ✨ Read more: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap26071...

Mar 17, 1986 was the day we filmed the (then) top-secret ending to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the unveiling of the Enterprise-A, since re-created by the artists of the Roddenberry Archive, including Donny Versiga, You can explore a lot more at roddenberry.x.io

On this day in 1944 Catherine Schell was born - #gerryanderson #sylviaanderson #fanderson #space1999

Today's birthday bests go out to Space:1999 star Catherine Schell, who played Maya in the show's second season and guest-starred in the first season as the Pirian girl in Guardian of Piri! What was Maya's coolest transformation?

Grandstanding idiot

"We're all aliens– until we get to know one another." Space: 1999 - The Metamorph arrives on Ultra High Definition 4K in a Limited Collectors Edition Steelbook! gerryanderson.com/products/spa...

Are we underestimating the threat of solar storms? A 'once-in-a-thousand-year' disaster is worth considering, scientists say www.space.com/astronomy/su...

'Dream' Roman mosaic find dug up from farmland. 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Let's ignore the past two heatwaves we've had, the hosepipe bans and the wildfires shall we. www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/2628700...

They’ve kicked this job into [oh-ho!] the LONG GRASS, eh readers?!!!

Activity for the #Perseids meteor shower begins tomorrow. Rates during July will be low and then gradually increase next month, leading up to the peak on 12-13 August. #Astronomy #PerseidsMeteorShower

It's coming along. I haven't stabbed myself with the needle yet. ko-fi.com/i/IZ6D623BI22

Dimetrodon, ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs and Mosasaurs are also not Dinosaurs.

Pteradactyls are not Dinosaurs. 🤦‍♀️

Happy Birthday to puppeteer and sculptor extraordinaire, Mary Turner! After many years with Gerry and Sylvia, Mary became a director, writer, and producer of several puppet TV series in her own right!

Born on this day 1933 - Puppeteer - Mary Turner #gerryanderson #sylviaanderson #fanderson

Now Crystal Palace just need to make an open iguanadon model to recreate this Victorian dining experience Be a wonderful cafe!

Tom Baker during "Horror of Fang Rock". #TomBaker #DoctorWho #FourthDoctor

It’s a Treasure to Science. Too Bad It Came Through Their Roof. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/s...

Morning

"Alien World Chemistry Found Inside Meteorite That Struck New Jersey home" -- awesome work by the homeowner to glove up and put the fragments that came through the roof into glass jars! It's a CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite, only the second observed fall of its kind www.seti.org/news/alien-w...

Nice write up from @oxfordphysics.bsky.social on our contributions from Oxford to the beta Pic d discovery. Shout out to DPhil @luke-parker.bsky.social for some super VLT observations and Breakthrough Listen pre-doc Leyla Iskandarli for some deep data analysis! www.physics.ox.ac.uk/news/planet-...

What everyone needs is a bare chested Scott Tracy out running lava.