@astro_jcm@mastodon.online
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

astro_jcm

@astro_jcm@mastodon.online

• Astronomer and science communicator
• Media Officer at the European Southern Observatory
• Won't shut up about space
• #astronomy #astrophysics #scicomm #astrophotography #space
• he/him
• Toots in English and español
• 🇪🇸 → 🇺🇸 → 🇨🇱 → 🇩🇪

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astro_jcm, to science
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Time has become a fuzzy concept with the pandemic: I can't believe it's already been 3 years since I (re)joined ESO as Media Officer! I couldn't be happier helping my colleagues spread the word about the cool they do, the amazing behind our telescopes, and the logistics needed to make everything run.

astro_jcm, to ai
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Academic conferences will soon be like "I have more of an generated blurb than a question."

spacelizard, to Astronomy
@spacelizard@aus.social avatar

I want a big poster print of this. Fortunately we do already have a high quality digital copy of it so it would be easy to do.

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@spacelizard I love this kind of cutaway illustrations 🤩

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@spacelizard @spacegeck I had a couple of courses on technical drawing in high school. In both we had to do everything by hand, which I loved as it did help me to fully assimilate many concepts. But I hated having to manually draw the typography, as my handwriting sucks and I'm utterly unable to write with nice, regular characters.

astro_jcm, to Dogs
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astro_jcm, to coffee
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

Shoutout to Pacandé, a cozy shop & roastery in . Excellent Colombian coffee and super friendly staff!

https://pacande.com/

astro_jcm, (edited ) to scifi
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

Just finished watching 'Scavengers Reign'. I've had to force myself not to binge-watch it, because it's so damn good I didn't want to go through the whole thing in one sitting. Beautiful. Brutal. Gorgeous. Disturbing. I need more.

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@icastico Agreed. They've covered the survival/discovery aspect in such an original and detailed way that if they do a second season they'd need to be careful in order not to feel repetitive while also staying on-brand. But I also like the fact that this felt pretty self-contained.

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@sharponlooker @harriorrihar ¡Cierto! Le sigo por aquí, sus diseños son geniales.

astro_jcm, to chile
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Here's a pic I took a few years ago at ESO's Paranal Observatory in , with the UT4 telescope aiming its four mighty lasers in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy orbiting our own.

What do we use the lasers for?

(a) Play with space 🐱
(b) Destroy rebel planets 💥
(c) Measure atmospheric turbulence 💨

astro_jcm, to random
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

Happy to those of you who don't follow ISO standards or who live in non-euclidean spaces with negative curvature.

(Yes, YES, I know that the value of itself doesn't change with geometry, don't ruin my joke)

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@4raylee But I don't have 2024 cakes! 😂

astro_jcm, to Astro
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

Mirror mirror on the wall... err, sorry: on ESO's Extremely Large Telescope! The first segments of the primary mirror of the ELT now have a shiny layer of protected silver.

Once fully assembled, the primary mirror will be 39 m wide. It will consist of 798 of these hexagonal segments, working together as a single mirror thanks to a complex system of sensors and positioning actuators with nanometric accuracy.

More details: https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann24005/

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

And here's a short video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCPPacJcP6w

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@Lafiel The segments will be recoated every couple of years. Since there are 798 segments, every day we'll have to remove 2 of them for recoating, and replace them with spares.

Each segment can be pushed above the neighbouring ones. Then a special crane will grab it from dedicated gripping points – those trumpet-shaped tubes you see under the segments.

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@Lafiel To clarify: polishing and coating are two different things. The polishing is done in Europe and the coating at Paranal in Chile. During normal use all that happens is that the coating slowly loses reflectivity, hence the need for recoating.

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@johncarlosbaez It could've been METIS, a mid infrared instrument for the ELT. The UK ATC is involved in the high-resolution spectrograph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5gJqi7nwM

Or maybe you saw MOONS, an upcoming instrument for another of our telescopes, the Very Large Telescope (our names are very straightforward :D).

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@Lafiel The spares will be used all the time. Every day we'll have to remove 2 segments for recoating, replacing them with spares. Another 2 segments the next day, etc, every single day, so that each segment has a fresh coating every ~2 years or so.

vicgrinberg, (edited ) to random
@vicgrinberg@mastodon.social avatar

If you ask me something just to re-post it somewhere else, it's a no go. Double so if this happens without even naming the source and linking back. Blockity-block.

Sometimes, people are just ... 🤯

yes, this is a warning. yes, I know I post publicly on the [ and what this implies. but there are certain things that are just not done. The above is one of them.]

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@vicgrinberg Can't believe you don't like being outsourced as an uncredited expert by internet randos, Victoria 🙃

gregeganSF, to random
@gregeganSF@mathstodon.xyz avatar

“No planet in our solar system experiences a total solar eclipse by one of its moons, where the moon completely covers the sun from an observer's perspective on the planet's surface.”

That will disappoint a lot of people in April.

This whole answer is amusingly addled. I doubt many humans would construe this question to mean “Can a planet’s moon ever block out the sun completely across the entire planet?”

FWIW, at the top of Jupiter‘s atmosphere Ganymede looks about two-and-a-half times bigger than the sun.

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@gregeganSF One day we'll find out that the servers behind these AI chatbots are just a room full of reply-guys typing on a computer. I'm not going to use the usual "monkeys with a typewriter" metaphor because I'm pretty sure even monkeys would do a better job at answering these questions.

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

What's your favorite version of Silicon Valley repackaging an old tech as new, at 10x the price?

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@ZachWeinersmith Juicero. Why use a normal juicer when you can buy our proprietary bags of chopped fruits/veggies and put them in our over-engineered wi-fi enabled machine.

astro_jcm, to Batman
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

Do I have space for this? No.
Is 300 bucks objectively a lot of money even if it's a 4k+ piece set? Yes.
Does this look bloody awesome? Also yes.

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

I mean, I can't look at that set without instantly hearing this in my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrmUk2YUm14

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

Speaking of 🦇
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AelmLu63Ly8

spacegeck, to random
@spacegeck@astrodon.social avatar

Sometimes you just gotta do some heavy lifting and remove a few quadrillion trillion tons of burning hydrogen out of the way.

The same nebula, without stars to obscure the view.

astro_jcm,
@astro_jcm@mastodon.online avatar

@spacegeck This looks amazing! 😮

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