food
Just tried a lazy risotto recipe (involves baking rice+stock in the oven rather than stirring) and completely forgot that brown rice takes one million years to cook and the recipe was for arborio rice. So. We'll have dinner...maybe by breakfast time?
food
Came out tasty after giving up on the oven method and just boiling/stirring it on the stovetop! Not exactly risotto, but still delicious, with pumpkin, sage, nutmeg, and some of the aged garlic/black pepper chevre I made months ago.
Getting close enough to our trip now that we are only allowed to buy more food if it helps us eat something in the freezer/pantry. It's an exciting game...I've definitely been eating a bit more weird combos as a result!
food
Just tried a lazy risotto recipe (involves baking rice+stock in the oven rather than stirring) and completely forgot that brown rice takes one million years to cook and the recipe was for arborio rice. So. We'll have dinner...maybe by breakfast time?
"Even Carrington would be impressed" 😬
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=02&month=12&year=2025
Hopefully we just get "someone should check on our satellites" levels of auroras and not "A bunch of open questions in solar-terrestrial physics are about to be answered"
This is blowing up a bit: not trying to scare you all! There is a gigantic set of sunspots coming around the limb of the sun, comparable in size to the sunspots sketched by Carrington. They may or may not send some plasma our way. There is also a minor aurora event predicted for 2 days from now due to interactions between an eruption from this sunspot group and previously emitted solar wind/magnetic fields.
ESA has some good info on big solar storms here: https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Space_weather/Flying_through_the_biggest_solar_storm_ever_recorded
"Even Carrington would be impressed" 😬
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=02&month=12&year=2025
Hopefully we just get "someone should check on our satellites" levels of auroras and not "A bunch of open questions in solar-terrestrial physics are about to be answered"
I was going to make another cup of tea before my next meeting starts, but I am now trapped at my desk under 2 cats.
@raucao@kosmos.social @skyglowberlin@fediscience.org Dude you're completely wrong about Starlink satellites being less bright now: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.00107
@raucao@kosmos.social @skyglowberlin@fediscience.org And Starlink quietly stopped using visors many years ago. And made their satellites bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
As long as I'm screaming, I hate hate hate that lower altitude orbits has become a standard request from astronomers to satellite operators.
Lower orbits make satellites blur out more for the specific setup of the Vera Rubin Observatory, I do not know if this is true for any other observatories in the world.
Lower orbits make satellites brighter and faster, which is worse for naked-eye stargazers and astrophotographers, and presumably for wildlife though nobody I know has studied that yet.
But the worst misconception is that the Earth's shadow will block more of the satellites at lower altitudes. This is true, but ONLY if you are at latitudes closer to the equator than 40 or so.
If you're closer to the poles (particularly around 50N or S, where I live, and a lot of you in Europe live), the Earth's shadow doesn't help. There's even more naked-eye visible satellites.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac341b
Just need to scream a little bit about how there are actually hard limits to how much stuff we can have in orbit without severe consequences! It's ok to say that out loud, even if the techbros don't want to hear it!
It's ok (and vitally important) to have in your list of recommendations for satellites operators "Don't launch so many satellites." This is really pretty key to not destroying the night sky, LEO, and/or the atmosphere.
As long as I'm screaming, I hate hate hate that lower altitude orbits has become a standard request from astronomers to satellite operators.
Lower orbits make satellites blur out more for the specific setup of the Vera Rubin Observatory, I do not know if this is true for any other observatories in the world.
Lower orbits make satellites brighter and faster, which is worse for naked-eye stargazers and astrophotographers, and presumably for wildlife though nobody I know has studied that yet.
Just need to scream a little bit about how there are actually hard limits to how much stuff we can have in orbit without severe consequences! It's ok to say that out loud, even if the techbros don't want to hear it!
It's ok (and vitally important) to have in your list of recommendations for satellites operators "Don't launch so many satellites." This is really pretty key to not destroying the night sky, LEO, and/or the atmosphere.
I really like how my interview ended! To reiterate: Special thank you to everyone who shares the night sky with the general public by volunteering your time and equipment!
And the episode wraps up with a nice discussion of ground-based urban light pollution, and why it's gotten so bad lately (it's because of LEDs - they are brighter, bluer, and cheaper, so they are hideously overused). But this is easy to fix: just turn it off.
Hope you enjoyed my breakfast live-toot-listening session haha
Related: I just started reading The Inner Clock by Lynne Peeples, all about how our bodies really do need exposure to light at the same time every day, and also need darkness, in order to keep pretty much everything functioning inside us. I'm only a chapter and a half in, but I already think it's really going to change how I use artificial light in my own house...
https://lynnepeeples.com/the-inner-clock/
Prof. Sam Lawler