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  I want to go here so badly. Especially right now, after I've spent all day trying to get the 197 parts of this stupid grant into the word limits and perfect formatting with a couple of "breaks" for meetings with astronomers to talk about satellites destroying everything... sand dunes in the middle of freaking nowhere sounds pretty amazing. https://mas.to/@Canadian_Eh/117390315717313607

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  It's the kind of auroras right now where it just looks like a greenish smudge to your eyes, but then you take a photo and it's ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE Please enjoy this lovely instrument (a camera) that lets us see a bunch of colours too faint for our eyeballs!

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  Goats are on patrol out in the woods eating invasive leafy spurge (and everything else, but all the plants around here evolved to be eaten by buffalo, so they can handle some goat nibbles)

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  A neighbour was out very late last night finishing up the harvest. A bit more light pollution than usual in photos (because of the extremely bright lights used for night harvesting with a giant combine), but found a tiny bit of auroras, and it was late enough that there weren't many satellite streaks. Yay.

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  I had a meeting today that taught me that the SpaceX launch site in Louisiana is an even worse idea than I could have even imagined. You know what causes really intensely powerful vibrations in the ground? Rocket launches. And do you know what really powerful vibrations in the ground cause in coastal wetlands? Liquifaction. SpaceX has completely lost their grip on reality and all of us are going to pay the price in various ways as they try to build impossible dangerous things.

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  Goat morning to you

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  Feeling very stressed about everything, and I went out to do some astrophotography. I was hoping for auroras, and was first excited to see an orange glow on the horizon, then annoyed as I realized it's probably a combine still harvesting, then delighted again as I realized it's the moon! Hello, moon. (Also hello Pleiades, hello Andromeda galaxy, hello Milky Way, and fuck you, Starlink)

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  I don't think that's what was meant in a post I just read about a SpaceX launch that includes a Canadian astronaut from Fort Saskatchewan, but anytime I see "Saskatchewan" and a SpaceX Crew Dragon in the same place, I think about the terrifyingly huge pieces of debris that SpaceX casually drops on Saskatchewan (and all over the world) from Crew Dragon cargo trunks and other spacecraft they launch. I just can't get excited about rockets anymore. The cost we all pay is too...

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  Today was the first morning it was dark enough when I went outside for morning chores that I could see a handful of stars... and two stupidly bright satellites UGH. I'll try to not be so angry that I forget to count next time: our prediction from late 2021 was one in 15 visible points in the sky would be satellites with 65,000 Starlink-brightness satellites in orbit. But I think we're getting there a lot faster... This is a shitty way to say "good morning."

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  WHY. https://mastodon.social/@alanboyle/117363099036751404

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  Today is Truth & Reconciliation Day. I am grateful to live on Treaty 4, the land of the nêhiyawak, Anihšināpēk, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakoda, and the homeland of the Métis/Michif. To share my land with local Indigenous people in the original spirit of this treaty, I'm involved in the Treaty Land Sharing Network, which I'm happy to see is growing: https://treatylandsharingnetwork.ca/ We've had people come to gather berries and medicinal plants, sweat rocks, and willow. Very glad...

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  Just got an official email from Amazon's reps who wrote up their FCC consolidated response to all the opposition comments on the bazillionty direct to device satellites they want to fly. I don't remember the details, and I don't think they were supposed to email me since I was just a co-author on behalf of organizations... and I am definitely not going to read this right before bed. Fuck off into the sun, Amazon.

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  I just started writing up complaints about several different things. And it's all just so far beyond what I can even complain about. So please enjoy these cats while keep writing about the terrible shit that's happening in orbit until my brain switches off for the night.

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  I think the terrifyingly huge SpaceX Starship launch that's happening right now is the one that's planning to deploy a bunch of the new Starlinks that are not actually approved by the FCC yet because SpaceX knows that the FCC will eventually approve them because they approve literally everything and absolutely nobody with power cares about safety or pollution or Kessler syndrome or the future at all. Good morning. https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vqtp5dj2o6rqnge56...

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  I don't want to talk about satellites and genAI (though I appreciate all the comments in my mentions. I just need a little break) I want to talk about goats and squash! Positive things I can directly affect! (Well, goats are you know, goats. So there are some limits to directly affecting them.)

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  What the actual fuck is this email?!??!!!

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  RE: https://flipboard.social/@ScienceDesk/117332176135137189 I was very sad to see the rescue mission didn't work. And now I guess Swift is also going to have an uncontrolled reentry? And it's pretty big and not designed to "fully demise" (though of course I know better than many that "full demisability" for satellites is a lie). I really don't like this russian roulette game, even if deaths are an extremely low probability, there are so many reentries now that...

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  Well, *someone* needs to post about this on Mastodon https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/adams-lake-mastodon-tooth-kamloops-9.7356189

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  Every year there's always one hen who goes and hides in the barn and makes her own nest in September, which is rather late for chicks in Saskatchewan. This particular mama did this last year too. I was going to see how many eggs she's sitting on, but I forgot that she's kind of evil and she tried to peck my hand off. My teenager named her "Motherclucker" which is delightful. (Except she's a jerk. Good protective mama hen, though!)

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  Oh gosh why did I save the literature review section for last? I'm soooo clooooose to being dooooonnnnneeee

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  Oof I did not have OBS configured correctly and my 30 minute lecture video was 1.5 GB. Oops. Hopefully ffmpeg to the rescue? (At least, I will try some random ffmpeg things and see if I can make it smaller)

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  Currently watching an IAU-CPS talk given by Olivier Hainaut. His simulations show that 30,000 sats at 350-600km causes the same astronomy research data loss as 6,000 sats at 1200 km. This is because higher altitudes are visible for a larger fraction of the night, and the sats move more slowly across the image so they cause brighter streaks even though they are farther away

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  RE: https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/science-jpuunj5gz/-/a-YmDM4c4kTD2CyrHhrV4h5Q%3Aa%3A3195393-%2F0 Maybe, just maybe, this will show all the companies racing to launch data centres into orbit that this is an extremely bad idea for many reasons?

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  The world needs to know that my niece and nephew decided that the little horn on the back-end of a hornworm (like a tomato worm, or in this case an introduced leafy spurge hawk moth caterpillar) is called a... Butt Fang. I cannot convey how much I love this. Biologists: we need this terminology in the literature.

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  This is a pretty good metaphor for how my day has gone. (The goat is totally fine and was only stuck for a minute or so)

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  Good morning. I did not finish my grant proposal draft yesterday (the university person I was supposed to turn it in to for first-round edits said they wouldn't have time to read it until Friday anyway. Yay?) I have a parade of meetings today. But maybe I can still finish it? And then I have like 7 articles I need to write about stupid shit happening in orbit. And a book... aaaaahhhhhhhhhh........ Trying real hard to channel this sunrise peace and it's not working for some odd re...

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  New neighbours just re-installed the very bright farmyard light that shines toward my house, that I had fervently hoped they removed for good. I am going to try leaving brownies and a note on their front porch offering to buy a cover or motion sensor for them and see if maybe they'll turn it off sometimes... (or actually talk about it in person if I happen to run into them). This tactic did not work with the previous neighbours but who knows.

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  PhD opportunity in interstellar object observations, in Aotearoa New Zealand working with the fabulous @astrokiwi.bsky.social: https://www.gravity.ac.nz/join/phd-opportunities/#BAYESNM

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  *Laughs in Saskatchewan which hasn't switched to daylight savings time in decades* then *Cries in Saskatchewan as I realize that starting in November I am going to have people in meetings I regularly organize in PDT, PST/PDT, MDT, MST/MDT, MST, CST, CDT/CST, EDT/EST, European time zones, New Zealand DT/ST, and Taiwan* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/time-zone-canada-map-9.7349663

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  Hey everyone, just thought you should know that Saskatchewan is beautiful.