Well, that was another entire workday completely eaten up by space debris, stupid techbro satellites, the FCC, and Reflect Orbital (which is the most egregious case of stupid techbro satellites...so far...) I need to go rage-scream in the hay field for a while and then snuggle some goats.

I have hilariously screwed up my day by getting a time conversion wrong. But hey, check out these cool pinhole rising-sun images projected on the wall this morning by the natural pinholes created by trees outside! You can actually see the half-circle shape of […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Poll's over. https://beige.party/@mayintoronto/115333436396003954 Highlights: - I never want to hear about how Fedi people are unsocial. 86% of you went outside at least once to meet another human being. - Someone actually got a kidney from a fedi-friend :blobcatlove […]

LAUNCH at about 1341 UTC Oct 8 of Blue Origin's New Shepard NS-36 from West Texas on a suborbital flight with six passengers.

@sundogplanets The Ballad of the Saskatchewan Goat-Sitter (chorus) Oh it's cold in the morning It's fucking cold outside There's frost on the hay bales You can't stay warm if you tried But the goats need their breakfast So it's to the barn you go At the break of day you bring the hay And the […]

LAUNCH at 0646 UTC Oct 7 of Starlink Group 10-59 from Canaveral

This Oatmeal comic on AI art is one of the better things I’ve seen in the topic. https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

Now... can my computer simultaneously handle giving a Zoom presentation and showing Google Earth at the same time? Both of those programs tend not to play nicely with linux... or maybe I'm just sort of bad at linux... in any case, wish me luck while I talk about the potential debris fall in […]

I'm so pissed I CALLED the stupid ag ministers office to tell them how much I hate this plan. It's hilarious that I can be interviewed for international news regularly and not get nervous, but calling a teensy weensy inconsequential provincial minister's office makes my hands shake. If you live […]

Good morning. I hope someone gives you a leg up this morning.

Fall is happening so hard here. Gotta enjoy it, the colours will probably be mostly gone within a week!

Oh hey look I'm on CNN with a really wishy-washy summary of an email I wrote about Planet Y! https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/03/science/planet-y-solar-system-study (Haha tooooooo many freaking interviews....)

WOW so many emails and Zoom meetings and battling my cat for the keyboard.

Getting the ducts and vents cleaned in our house (probably for the first time *ever* in this 70+yo house). The guys working are super super nice, which I very much appreciate (I find people doing work for me to be very stressful, especially fixing stuff, which is definitely a little silly...it's […]

Good morning. It's -6C and very frosty (but at least it didn't snow...I'm not quite mentally prepared for that yet)

I am so so tired of doing interviews. Like, actually, really, completely tired. But I need to do more, because more incredibly stupid things are about to happen in orbit. Just did some prep work to set up for interviews this week. Now I need to do some more outside farmy stuff (even though […]

"There are currently one to two Starlink satellites falling back to Earth every day ... Soon, McDowell told us, there will be up to 5 satellite reentries per day." 😳

We planted and mulched the garlic today. Sleep well, babies! See you in ... oh gosh ... seven months (it is truly impressive that anything can survive our -40C winters and sprout in the spring)

@sundogplanets Maybe you already saw this article in Earth and Sky about Starlink space junk reentries every day. It quoted your Mastodon posts. https://earthsky.org/human-world/1-to-2-starlink-satellites-falling-back-to-earth-each-day/

-7C?! Ugh.

Ok (hopefully) last interview of the week done for a small province-wide radio station that I think someone here recommended to me. Thanks, fediverse! One last shot at getting the word out to farmers who might find Starlink debris in their fields. Next week, I'll shift my focus to teaching lots […]

LAUNCH at 1406 UTC Oct 3 of Starlink Group 11-39 from Vandenberg

I have to read a bunch of interviews with Reflect Orbital people for fact-checking, and they're just dripping with the worst kind of ignorant hubris. They are saviours! No one else could have ever possibly come up with their ideas! What do you mean there are problems we haven't considered? […]

Interstellar comet 3I/Atlas is flying past Mars today. Might get some cool views! skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-ne...

I can tell there are good auroras happening, but thank goodness it's cloudy so that I can finally go to bed early! (Though I'm sure I'll go take a look in the middle of the night too)

I got a text from my sister to the effect of "What's up with that comet that's head for Earth?" She somehow misunderstood whatever horrified response I had about the misinformation and then asked "Oh no! How bad will it be? Are they doing anything to stop it?!" Once I calmed her down she said […]

I usually make things for people to use at home, but it seems to me that the only purpose of this bowl is to bob and spin in the Gulf. #ceramics #pottery #nature #water #beach #florida #birds #PeacefulMoments

Henry Hsieh talking about active asteroids (Main Belt Comets): asteroids that have cometary activity due to sublimation or a recent collision. Four MBC's have been observed by JWST, no CO2 or CN detected, just H2O, as expected. Talked about lab study that helped figure out what was happening […]

Oh my gosh I shouldn't complain about so many great aurora shows, but I want to go to bed early and it's too damn pretty!! This is getting a little ridiculous... more auroras forecast for tonight!

Second shit-disturbing co-author paper on satellite stuff submitted! Time to go move the goat fence so the goats can eat some more grass.

Had time for a midday mental health woods walk for the first time in...a really long time. The colours right now are amazing, and I know fall lasts for about 5 minutes before winter starts, so trying to absorb as much of it as I can

I've got a cat on my lap and ready to watch my friend and collaborator, the brilliant Kat Volk, give the first talk of the day at the #solarsystemincontext hybrid conference, on distant TNO resonances and I'm super excited to hear what cool dynamics she's going to talk about

Good morning

Damn I wanted to go to bed early but there are REALLY GOOD AURORAS again!

HA I just learned that Prof Mike Brown is giving the talk for my local amateur astronomy group this week! I had him as a prof while I was a student at Caltech, *fantastic* teacher. But I'm the go-to anti-Planet-9 astronomer who always gets interviewed after him in articles. Is it too awkward […]

Can I edit a mostly-written article about Reflect Orbital being completely awful in the 2 hours before the conference starts back up? (Yes I'm skipping sessions) Follow-up question: if I power through and finish the article, will I be coherent enough by the time my talk rolls around to give it? […]

When an interstellar object passes close by, all eyes are on it! #ESA is making its solar system mission look at the #comet 3I/ATLAS: first #ExoMars TGO and #MarsExpress when the comet passes close to Mars and then the #Juice, currently on its way to […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Luke Bourma: Wow great summary plot of how the measurements of different exoplanet properties depend on precise measurements of different stellar properties. Stellar metallicity sets mass budget for planets. Stellar ages set planet evolution timeline […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A great researcher I work with @carlysagan is looking for research funding or a remote position! It is really depressing how little funding is available to research the effects of satellite reentries... we REALLY need to get more scientists on this, because 1-5 Starlinks per day are reentering […]

WOW WOW WOW

Faint but fairly tall auroras happening! Going to mess around with the camera instead of going to bed early like I really should... https://www.aurorasaurus.org/

26 slides for a 9 minute talk will work? Right? RIGHT?? (I do this *every* time I give a talk! And I am really good at staying under my time limits)

Holy shit, it's STILL MONDAY?!

I bet you need some cute goats (I definitely do)

Space debris interview number one done for today. 2 more to go (that I know of...)

I'm listening to and speaking at the #solarsystemincontext hybrid conference this week (I'm attending remotely, hooray for remote options!) https://noirlab.edu/science/events/websites/solar-system-in-context-2025 I'll try to share a few highlights, though my multitasking level this week is […]

@sundogplanets In case you didn’t see it yet, Scott Manley released an excellent video about telling the difference between meteors and space debris on YouTube. https://youtu.be/y5bYAjCMcwM?si=69co2IPYRrNTCTTw

LAUNCH at 0204 UTC Sep 29 of Starlink Group 11-20 from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

I'm supposed to give a talk online for a hybrid conference in a couple of days on my "real" research: finding Kuiper Belt Objects and measuring their orbits. And even though I LOVE this stuff (orbital dynamics! Mean-motion resonances! Observation biases!) I am having a very hard time getting […]