S.M. Pritchard
Physics BSc. | Hard SF Writer/Worldbuilder | Space Artist | Amateur (hopefully one day professional) Astronomer | They/Them | Opinions my own
- Exactly.
- The CIA World Factbook has been taken down without warning or explanation.
- This. A basic part of research is lit review. You have to search out and actually *read* the work that has been done already before you can actually do research. I think some people see citations as a kind of marker of "correctness", like the longer the references section is the more "right" it is.
- As a treat, here's a different kind of transit. This is the eclipsing binary IW UMa, with what I think is the primary eclipse just at the start of the lightcurve. Going at it again tonight to see if I can maybe catch the secondary eclipse or not. ☄️🧪🔭
- Tell me five classes you took in college: -Fundamentals of Astronomy -Introduction to Astrophysics (we did a fun mock TESS grant proposal and had an in-class journal club) -Unifying Concepts in Physics (fun discussion-based "capstone" class) -Cosmology -Independent study on Martian geology
- I've always loved Alec's channel, and this is perhaps his magnum opus. It's a long watch, but very worth it. And even if you can't spend the hour-and-a-half to sit through the whole thing, I encourage you to at least watch the last 15 minutes.
- Let's do this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9...
- How anxious should I be that I've not heard back from any of the astro grad programs I applied to yet
- Reposted by S.M. PritchardBeast Breaker meant the world to us~ and now Vodeo Games' first release is coming to Steam! Enjoy our brick-breaking adventure to take down tyrants with your diverse family (both related & found). Relevant today, relevant always. Check out our announcement & wishlist Beast Breaker on Steam ❤️
- Hi friends! I'm happy to announce that our little mouse-bouncing adventure Beast Breaker will finally be playable on Steam! Everyone thank our friends at @kandofactory.bsky.social for making this possible. Lots of details about all the new stuff here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWfQ...
- Rest in power, Alex Pretti. Abolish ICE.
- This is Alex Pretti. This morning he was murdered by ICE. Six ICE agents held him down and shot him at point blank range. Alex was a nurse and researcher at the VA. Our thoughts are with his loved ones and we stand united in action calling for the abolishment of ICE. #ScientistsAgainstICE
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- Reposted by S.M. PritchardOnce again, immigration is not even a problem. Immigrants are not more criminal, they don't cost jobs, they don't harm the economy. There is no reason for any of this. It is hurting ourselves to hurt them.
- The Pentagon has failed all of its audits for almost as long as I've been alive. As always, the military budget should be cut by 75% and the proceeds used to fund universal healthcare, UBI, public transit, education (including free college), student loan forgiveness, and NSF/NASA/NIH.
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- I reprocessed my transit data for TOI 3822.01 using more comp stars and slightly different aperture settings. I also tweaked the model star parameters and remembered to detrend airmass this time. Now I get the predicted transit depth exactly and a radius of 1.14 R_jup (a 5.78% error vs. 15%)! 🔭🧪☄️
- As true now as it was then, if not more so.
- Lightcurve for the eclipsing binary system XY Leo. 🔭🧪☄️
- Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42, and post the second sentence. "Full well saturation is tied to the gain and ADU by [equation] (3.2)."
- Okay this is super super cool. According to this new paper, the enigmatic pillar-like prototaxites (which has for a while been thought to have been some kind of giant fungus) is actually not only *not* a fungus but seems to not be related to any modern branch of life!
- Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below! Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage
- If I ever have enough money (lol) to have a house with some land (lmao, even), I'd really love to set up a big 14" SCT with an LHIRES spectroscope and do long-term observations of spectroscopic binaries.
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