I just voted by mail in the California primary election. 🗳️

Still true. 📕

Apollo-era scientists wanted astronauts to cover as much ground at their landing sites as possible. To some, Lunar Flying Units seemed an ideal solution. spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/07/rock...

I have and love the SkySafari app for my phone but it has just freaked out showing a huge number of imaginary insanely bright comets, including this one which has an apparent magnitude of -87.4. WTF?! 🔭 Restarting my phone made no difference.

Impressive lava fountaining happening right now.

Nice lava action in Hawai'i right now. There are two live feeds that are worth watching. Here's view 1: www.youtube.com/live/HggWKlZ...

I was watching Jeopardy! last night when it was interrupted by an NBC News Special Report. My first thought was, “Is he dead?” Alas, no.

I don't suppose anyone who lives in the Boston area could get me one of these John Williams musical bobbleheads. www.mlb.com/redsox/ticke...

I am covering acids and bases in my physical science class this week and just cooked up a bottle of red cabbage juice. It is a wonderful indicator of pH and we will use it in class.

Here’s the entirety of April on the Sun! The month was pretty quiet (particularly welcome during the Artemis II launch), picking up towards the end of the month. Overall, sunspot numbers were in the lowest three months since 2022 – continuing the decline in solar activity!

Warm-to-hot spring temps, with both daytime and nighttime conditions much warmer than mid-May averages, will redevelop over the next few days across most of the U.S. West under fairly strong ridging. This will be notable, though generally not record-breaking, early season heat.

This is a wonderful look at Jupiter's volcanic moon Io. 🔭

The James Webb Space Telescope has observed the surface of a bare rocky exoplanet, revealing old, dark rock akin to that on our Moon. skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-ne...

Wow. That's a beautiful view.

Wow! The hack of Canvas seems to be the real deal. hackread.com/shinyhunters...

HiPOD: The Dunes in the Crater We acquired this image to accomplish several science goals with this dune field within an impact crater: to monitor frost deposition, landscape evolution and sublimation of subsurface ice. https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_076949_2435 #Mars #science #NASA

NASA’S Juno Misson Captures Jupiter Moon Thebe The spacecraft captured this view of Thebe, the second largest of Jupiter’s inner moons, during a close pass on May 1, 2026. science.nasa.gov/photojournal... 🧪🔭

A great weightless photo taken recently on the ISS. www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2...

Nice sunset this evening.

Love your mother.

Saturday's Sun shot a few minutes ago through some thin cirrus clouds. 🔭

Here's an animated gif showing supernova SN2026kid in the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5907. Look for the star that winks on and off to the right of the center of the galaxy. I shot the galaxy back in March and earlier this week under bright moonlight. 🔭 Tip of the hat to @rami.spaceaustralia.com

I am not on TikTok but someone over there did a short piece on the Palomar College Planetarium which has had a huge positive impact on our ticket sales. www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8gK6X9p/

It’s crazy that there are people his many people on the ballot in the California governor’s race. I almost feel like I am the only person not in the running.

Talking about SETI and the Drake Equation in one of my astronomy classes tomorrow. I'm having serious doubts as to whether I should keep this in my Powerpoint. 🔭

#ArtemisII My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

As the Artemis II crew was rounding the Moon—the first crewed lunar mission in 54 years—the White House was proposing to cut NASA's budget and terminate FIFTY science missions. Here's a timely rundown of just *some* of what we'd lose if those cuts came to pass. www.planetary.org/articles/mee...

The seeing is fairly bad tonight but, here is the Moon, 11.5 days old in the waxing gibbous phase. 🔭

When my digital thermometer gets wet it says that the outside temperature is 158 degrees. 😮

The evening sky map for May is here!

HiPOD: A Mysterious Fractured Depression on Mars While we have learned so much about Mars after over 50 years of exploration with spacecraft, there are some features that continue to be mysteries. https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_071541_2200 NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona #Mars #NASA

It is great to see the scale of Dragonfly here. All of the animations of the mission don't easily show off how huge this drone is. I can't wait for it to fly in Titan's atmosphere.

For #caturday here's an infrared photo of my cat, Phoebe, looking out of a window. That's her reflection on the left.

The Lunar Alps at sunrise - captured last night

I haven’t listened to this one yet but I am loving these podcasts.

A quick session in #Edinburgh before the Haar (advection fog) rolled in. Apennines with part of Hadley Rille, and Triesnecker and Hyginus Rille. #CFF160 🔭, #TeleVue 2.5x powermate, #Touptek 585 mono camera. #astrophotography

The James Webb Space Telescope has taken a deep look at the rings around the ice giant Uranus and found a new mystery to be solved. skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-ne...

Collected on April 23, 2026, by one of Vantor's WorldView Legion satellites, this image of the Hubble Space Telescope from above was acquired from only 61.8 km away.

A cartoon for #IndieBookstoreDay, which is tomorrow! Get out to your local bookstore! www.indiebound.org/

HiRISE 8K: Ice Melting in Chasma Boreale during Northern Spring These dunes are called barchan dunes, with dune tips or horns that point downwind, providing an indicator of dominant wind direction. Full cutout on Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/2s8V9Gb NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona #Mars #NASA

Had an extra credit observing night for my astronomy students last night and we were treated to a rocket launch. 🔭

Wow! www.youtube.com/live/NDA9Bsv...

It's Earth Day! So what better way to mark the day than with one of the photos of our homeworld taken by the Artemis II crew a few weeks ago. Hard to see national boundaries, sectarian divides, or differences in skin colour from this distance.

Taking a break from work to watch baby eagles being fed is wonderful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4-L...

100 years of average January-March temperature anomalies over land areas through 2026... watch our planet heating up! Data from NOAAGlobalTemp v6.1.0: www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/lan...

Monday morning and I am in the fog.

Beautiful star trails! 🔭

Waxing Crescent Moon and the Pleiades. 2034UT 19 April 2026. 🔭 🧪 🎨 #astrophotography #SciArt #photography #StormHour #ThePhotoHour

Centaurus A never gets even 14 degrees above my horizon. I have a hill to my south and it just barely clears it. Here's a photo of it with my Celestron Origin and you can see the hill with blurry trees on it at the bottom of the image. @rami.spaceaustralia.com has a MUCH better view. ❤️ his video. 🔭