The @herts.ac.uk astronomy MSc and PhD applications are open. I'm offering PhD projects on JWST spectroscopy of young stars in Tr 14 and star-cluster formation. I'm also offering an MSc project on variability of YSOs. www.herts.ac.uk/research/cen... #galactic #stellarastro #astro #Physics

Giving a Zoom talk at NAM this afternoon on 'The Imprint of Clustered Star Formation on Kinematics of Young Stars in the Solar Neighbourhood' (room TLC116; Anne Buckner's Star Clusters session) 🔭☄️🧪 #galactic

🎉 #50YearsOfESA: for half a century, we've been serving Europe as its space agency and inspiring its citizens. Join us this anniversary year to reflect not only on our past achievements, but also on our future perspectives!

We are hosting the 2025 UK & Ireland Discs meeting at the University of Hertfordshire (8-10 September). Topics include discs of all sorts, but especially protoplanetary discs and white dwarf debris discs. Abstract submission deadline is 15 May: ukidiscs.github.io/discs2025/ 🔭🧪⚛️☄️

The time of year where England turns into fairyland. #Bluebells around the corner from my office at @herts.ac.uk. #uniofherts

First bluebells in UH’s coppiced woods.

Airplane + internal reflection image of the sun (upside down) from my phone camera 🔭

Eclipse, as seen using shopping receipts. 🔭

Looking forward to a high-resolution view of Tr 14 with JWST pre-imaging.

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Very excited to start using this dust map! You can query it with the dustmaps Python package. #galactic

So many cool new #galactic papers came out today! ☄️ Paper #1 on my list is by @catherinezucker.bsky.social et al. They use the DECaPS2 photometric survey to create a massive, 6.1 billion voxel 3D catalogue of dust in the southern galactic plane! It complements the existing Bayestar map really well.

Full moon from St Albans.

Our next talk on Café Scientifique - Harpenden would be effects of micro-organisms on climate change. Please see the attached flyer for details, and hope that you can join us.

"If I'd have seen it, I probably would've been standing right there, so it probably would've ripped me in half." Wow! www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

The @esa.int Gaia satellite will take its final scientific measurements on Wednesday. 🔭 This will conclude a 12 year series of continuous observations. Larger Gaia data releases are still in progress, but Gaia has already had a HUGE impact on our understanding of the #milkyway. (Image: ESA)

Aurora over my building #Hatfield

Morning commute. #Herts

Just got my copy of the Protostars and Planets VII book! 🤩

A SPICY new EXor outburst! arxiv.org/abs/2401.09522 One intriguing result is that, while the outburst faded, TiO absorption appeared but then disappeared, a behavior not previously seen. This unexpected finding places strong constraints on where the outburst emission originates. 🔭 🧪⚛️

If you're applying for grad school in astronomy, the University of Hertfordshire (just north of London) is accepting PhD applications (due by the end of the month). I have two projects (linked below), one on mapping the Galaxy and the other on the variability of young stars. 🔭 🧪

A couple of weeks ago the first paper of the XUE collaboration was accepted 🔭. We are studying the properties of disks in extreme UV radiation environments and trying to figure out what massive stars do to the forming sites of Earth-like planets. www.mpia.de/news/science...

Aardachtige planeten kunnen zelfs ontstaan onder barre omstandigheden www.astronomie.nl/nieuws/aarda...

Enjoyed an engaging talk by Prof Christian Iliadis from UNC on experimentation and statistical modelling in nuclear astrophysics. 🔭 🧪

Interested in a PhD in astronomy? Check out the University of Hertfordshire's projects for this year, including several in star formation. www.herts.ac.uk/research/cen... Application deadline 1 Feb 2024. 🔭 🧪

I thought this was a really nice astrostatistics talk at Herts this week. The speaker is Prof Alan Heavens talking about Bayesian inference for cosmology. 🔭🧪⚛️ (Also very comprehensible for those of use who don't work in cosmology. 🙂) www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-8T...

Personal update: Today 🎃, on the first anniversary of joining the University of Hertfordshire, I get to announce that I've been offered and accepted a permanent position here. 😊

I got to (virtually) host my PhD advisor, Kosta Getman, for a seminar at Hertfordshire. Here's his talk on X-rays from young stars, super flares, and their effects on planets. www.youtube.com/watch?v=waBZ... 🔭⚛️🧪

We're starting a new YouTube playlist for astro talks at the University of Hertfordshire. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... 🔭🧪

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Spitzer Space Telescope. Its discoveries and archives continue to impact astronomy. Here are some personal highlights: Spitzer found 1000s of protostars and young stars with disks (green dots) in molecular clouds (red) such as those in Orion. 🔭

"How wealthy "super emitters" are disproportionately driving the climate crisis — while blaming you" by Matthew Rozsa for @salonnewsroom.bsky.social www.salon.com/2023/08/22/h...

Congrats to #ISRO! 🇮🇳🚀🌓

Chandrayaan-3 powered descent to the lunar surface began at 1213:50 UTC. Currently descending through 12 km

Wishing for success for ISRO with Chandrayaan-3. 🌓

Our sunflowers were planted entirely by the birds.

Moving house soon (within Hatfield), but enjoying our garden in the meantime.

Just submitted my first MNRAS paper as corresponding author. Hope I did it properly. 😬🇬🇧

Trying to get my old Twitter cover photo to work on this site, but the positioning doesn't seem to work. Anyway, here's a fox from CTIO in IV Región de Coquimbo.