Prof. Sam Lawler
Prof. Sam LawlerSuper busy today, but just have to quickly share that this morning, I woke up at a friend's house, under a skylight, and was delighted to see stars above me for nearly the first time this whole BC trip (lots of clouds here)!
And literally 10 seconds later, I saw a fucking Starlink train! Through the skylight!!! AUGH.
Prof. Sam LawlerIf you want a preview (or are among the 99.9999% of people who aren't able to watch in person), here's a nicely recorded talk I gave almost a year ago (RASC Toronto uses VDO ninja! Good open-source stuff).
The numbers of satellites and pieces of debris on the ground have been updated, as well as adding a short discussion of the CRASH Clock, but it's all basically the same message: https://www.youtube.com/live/6MDI7rEgb6g
Prof. Sam LawlerMy talk went very well, what a great group of people! RASC Victoria hosts an informal hybrid "astro cafe" every week!! After my talk was over, one person gave a super interesting talk about what's happening inside a particular nebula image, someone talked about the upcoming Artemis mission, and someone talked about interstellar rockets and played a song on a slide guitar they wrote about it! That was delightful
Plus, I got to meet at least 3 people from mastodon in person. Excellent!
Prof. Sam LawlerI really really hate QR codes. But a lot of people really like them. And they're useful during a talk for the people who really like them (I'm also including the text of the link, though, dammit!)
But... I have never done this before, and a lot of the "free QR code generators" look kind of scammy and I don't want to give people weird viruses or spam. So... fediverse, help!
Prof. Sam LawlerI am up at the observatory in Victoria today (and for the whole week)! It is really fun to see a whole bunch of people I used to work with when I was a postdoc here, and be in a building that is completely full of astronomers!! Quite a change from Saskatchewan where I am the only professional research astronomer in the entire province... (Also it's sunny again and I want to go hike. But I will get some writing and emailing and talk-organizing done first...)
#ProfSamLectureTour
Prof. Sam LawlerMy 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
Prof. Sam LawlerIf you want a preview (or are among the 99.9999% of people who aren't able to watch in person), here's a nicely recorded talk I gave almost a year ago (RASC Toronto uses VDO ninja! Good open-source stuff).
The numbers of satellites and pieces of debris on the ground have been updated, as well as adding a short discussion of the CRASH Clock, but it's all basically the same message: https://www.youtube.com/live/6MDI7rEgb6g
Prof. Sam LawlerWooo! 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
Prof. Sam LawlerMy 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
Prof. Sam LawlerOther 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
Prof. Sam LawlerSorry 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.
Prof. Sam LawlerI 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).
Prof. Sam LawlerOther 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
Prof. Sam LawlerI 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).
Prof. Sam LawlerWooo! 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