Aurora timelapse, or a timelapse of a helicopter doing circuits over an air weapons range with tracer fire?

Oh, go on then, seeing as it's you...both.

I love the reflections 😍

Just another quiet night over the bay (about 20 minutes real-time) 😎
#Aurora #Scotland #Highlands

I must stress, this isn't posh kit. Yes, your kid can absolutely do it. This is me holding a £250 cameraphone to the eyepiece of a £70 high school bog standard microscope, with a desk lamp pointed at it.
I scraped moss from the tarmac in front of the school, shook it in water, and put a drop of the sludge on a slide.
The challenge is finding your tardigrade...

If you want more hot tardigrade action, have a listen to the "Water Bears In Space" episode of NASA's "Houston, We Have A Podcast":
https://www.nasa.gov/podcasts/houston-we-have-a-podcast/water-bears-in-space/

If you're not familiar with tardigrades, AKA water bears or moss piglets, they're the coolest little animals ever. Around half a millimetre long, 8 legs with either suction cups or claws on the end (mine had claws, visible to the eye in the microscope), and they're as close to being invincible as it gets. They'll survive stupidly high/low temps, vacuum, resistant to radiation, can survive exposure to space, and can dehydrate themselves to survive indefinitely. And they're SO CUTE!

I found a tardigrade! Been looking for one of these every time we do the "Life In The Littlest Loch" experiment and finally found one! So cute 😍

*does finding a tardigrade dance*

Oh, and clouds, kilometers or so. But frankly, as an astrophotographer, screw you, clouds.

I particularly like this one for the depth of field: grasses (cm), #aurora (100km) and stars (tens of light years)

Said prism, on said piece of paper. The spectrum is a happy coincidence of afternoon sun, the student is actually working with the Neon spectral lines, and doing justice to a lovely old spectroscope which has been in storage too long.

6th year comes to see me:

"I'm trying to measure the angle on a prism, got anything more accurate than this protractor?"

"Hmm...maybe if we..." [about to say "draw lines down the sides, but extend them a long way, join the far ends, and measure that triangle accurately, then use trig?"]

"We could use trig? Maybe if we draw lines down the sides, but extend them a long way, join the far ends, and measure that triangle accurately?"

"Have a very large piece of paper."

"Thanks for your help!"

Banning protests urging a ceasefire on Armistice Day has strong "You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" vibes.

Nice little surprise on the all sky camera this morning. #Aurora #Highlands

Realised too late that I didn't add image descriptions, and whilst I love the edit feature it doesn't seem to want to play right now. So...
Image 1: the International Space Station as a streak of light flying (bottom left to top right) between Orion's belt and sword.
Image 2: A weird streak of light, changing colour constantly, in roughly the shape of Alfred Hitchcock's silhouette.
Image 3: A faint streak of a comet above a roof, just as the light is fading to dark.

A few of my favourite (but maybe not *best*) astrophotography pics.

The ISS flying past Orion's belt

A long, handheld exposure of Sirius showing the colour changes due to the atmosphere. Also Alfred Hitchcock.

Comet Neowise over a neighbour's house.

Seeing as all us twitter refugees are doing introductions:
I'm a high school #Science #Technician, weirdest and most entertaining job in the world, even the washing up can be interesting.
#Space and #ScienceFiction geek from a young age, studied #Astrophysics and maintain an interest in #Astronomy, #Physics and #Science in general, long term tinkerer with #Astrophotography. Big fan of anything that flies. Involved in multiple art/science crossover projects. Learning bass guitar far too late.