Tod Lauer
@todlauer
Extragalactic astronomer (black holes, galaxies, galaxy clusters, stellar pops) who also dabbles in planetary astronomy. Really, basically a pixel pusher.
Had a visit in our den tonight from a giant hairy desert scorpion.This one was about the size of my palm. Ironically its not that venomous, unlike the vastly smaller bark scorpion, but your brain doesn’t process it that way. We showed it the door.
A great day for signs around Tucson, starting with finally getting an answer to an old question:
OK, it's one thing to see a science abstract that is far beyond my expertise, but not an abstract in astrophysics that doesn't even seem to be about any science. And who would read this abstract and say, "Oh, yeah! I'm really gonna have to drop what I'm doing and read this one!"
Open our carport door to go get the paper and hear a loud rattle from this guy only five feet away.
Not sure if it's the same thing, but I love making RYG "fever charts" for research projects, papers, reports, etc. List of tasks, questions, etc. All start out completely red, then yellow once something is done, and then green when complete. This is one example.
Would you trust your nice spacecraft to this gang? A cartoon my daughter Sandra Muller made in 2018 of the New Horizons hazard team in advance of the Arrokoth encounter. We had to look ahead to make sure it had no debris around it that we might smack into at 14 km/s.
Scanned a picture I took of Halley on 3/21/86 from Kona, HA with my 35mm camera. The "teapot" is at center, with Baade's window steaming out the spout. Pluto was in the "teaspoon" for the NH encounter. SGR A* is near the right edge. I was on both the New Horizons and Event Horizon telescope teams.
This inspired me to reply with this little clip of sizzling fresh asphalt in front of our house.
My collection of books on "2001." What I get from the movie in 2026 is strongly different than what I came away with in 1971, when I first saw it at age 14. But it always remains a wonderful inspiration for the imagination, a jazz melody that sparks endless improvisation.
A little discarded snakeskin that I found by our pool today. The head and tail portions are missing, and hey the snake outgrew it, so where ever he or she is, I know they're considerably bigger than this.
Late night image processing tricks. Look for dust in an HST WFPC2 image of elliptical galaxy NGC 5846 by subtracting off a model of the galaxy. It's not GALFIT, but you do what you can.
Does anyone know of real scientists commandeering aircraft? In 2001, Heywood Floyd snags two spaceliners to get to Clavius Base (no Zoom for him), and in The Andromeda Strain, Wildfire director Jeremy Stone snags an airliner to get to the lab. Other examples? Did either get peanuts and a drink?