Wooo! After a gorgeous hike up and down PKOLS (Mt. Douglas), my first (last-minute) talk of my ridiculous lecture tour has fallen into place... for tomorrow night! Good thing I"ve got a talk that I've given a bunch of times that only needs minor updates.
I'll share info once I get confirmation from the organizers that it's fine to invite the general public.
#ProfSamLectureTour
My talk on "Astronomy vs. the Billionaire Space Race" is for the RASC Victoria chapter's weekly astronomy cafe, and is open to the public (though you are encouraged to join the RASC. If you like astronomy stuff they are a great group!)
More info about the location (the Fairfield Community Centre in Victoria at 7pm) and the meeting my talk will be part of is here: https://victoria.rasc.ca/astronomy-cafe/
#ProfSamLectureTour
Other megaconstellations are starting to catch up a bit now. Which is why the CRASH Clock (our team's measure of how long it would take for a collision if all satellite maneuvers suddenly stopped) is so ridiculously short: 5 days in our updated calculation
OneWeb has 654 up out of 7,000 planned
Kuiper has 180 out of 3,000 planned
Xingwang has 160 out of 1,000 planned
Satellite numbers from https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html
Sorry that was depressing and everything is already terrible. I would normally post a photo of my goats, but they are far far away right now.
So, here are some very happy goats in Victoria we found yesterday, happily eating Christmas trees.
I have not updated my Starlink numbers in a while, and great flying fuckballs, is it ever bad. We are now up to 9,422 Starlink satellites in orbit, out of 14,046 total active satellites.
1,446 Starlinks have reentered and added their 500-1500kg of computers, batteries, solar panels, and aluminum frame to the upper atmosphere (and at least one has hit the ground).
Other megaconstellations are starting to catch up a bit now. Which is why the CRASH Clock (our team's measure of how long it would take for a collision if all satellite maneuvers suddenly stopped) is so ridiculously short: 5 days in our updated calculation
OneWeb has 654 up out of 7,000 planned
Kuiper has 180 out of 3,000 planned
Xingwang has 160 out of 1,000 planned
Satellite numbers from https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html
I have not updated my Starlink numbers in a while, and great flying fuckballs, is it ever bad. We are now up to 9,422 Starlink satellites in orbit, out of 14,046 total active satellites.
1,446 Starlinks have reentered and added their 500-1500kg of computers, batteries, solar panels, and aluminum frame to the upper atmosphere (and at least one has hit the ground).
Wooo! After a gorgeous hike up and down PKOLS (Mt. Douglas), my first (last-minute) talk of my ridiculous lecture tour has fallen into place... for tomorrow night! Good thing I"ve got a talk that I've given a bunch of times that only needs minor updates.
I'll share info once I get confirmation from the organizers that it's fine to invite the general public.
#ProfSamLectureTour
I was totally going to buckle down and do some writing today, but there are blue skies instead of rain here in Victoria so I think I am required to spend time outside instead!
Sending peace. We need it.
A very Victoria moment today: we finally managed to find a semi-public charging station with a plug that would work for our plug-in hybrid car (a Chevy Volt, I had no idea that would be so hard...), and we were all delighted to see that the Tesla charging next to us had a huge bumper sticker on the back that said "Protect Trans Kids (from men like Elon Musk)"
I have never seen the word "perihelion" in a weather warning before! Wow.
I'm totally saving this to show my students why basic astro 101 is very practical sometimes (...ok maybe the prairies do not have a tidal flooding problem...but... perihelion!!)
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/115828276041483994
Ah, perfect, @AkaSci@fosstodon.org added a diagram and an explanation of why this weather warning is happening!
Happy Perihelion+perigee Moon!
In the northern hemisphere, around midnight, the Wolf Moon will be high in the sky, you know why.
🌝
The moon's perigee and the earth's perihelion on the Sun's side, will result in heightened King Tide.
3/n
I have never seen the word "perihelion" in a weather warning before! Wow.
I'm totally saving this to show my students why basic astro 101 is very practical sometimes (...ok maybe the prairies do not have a tidal flooding problem...but... perihelion!!)
And after a few cloudy-but-not-rainy days, we're back to an impressive forecast showcasing Weather Canada's ability to say "rain" in as many different ways as possible
Prof. Sam Lawler
