Hey cool I'm in the first line of a nice WaPo info-graphic-opinion piece! https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/space-trash-debris-spacex/?itid=hp_opinions_p001_f021

Well, I came across as pretty aggressively anti-Starlink in this interview: https://www.emergingtechbrew.com/stories/2024/11/12/scientists-letter-fcc-regulate-spacex-starlink-satellites

(I guess that's what happens when I do several back-to-back interviews right after the US election)

Had a nice weekend focused on small things I can actually make better. Picked the last of the carrots, fed lots of carrots, old apples, and pumpkins to the animals, had an evening out stargazing with friends.

Of course, there were a truly stunning number of satellites - I saw THREE Starlink trains, and I'm not even sure how to quantify how ridiculously many sats there were - way more than 10% of visible stars close to zenith (which was my horrifying prediction from a few years ago. Fuck.)

I almost skipped it because it's so emotionally draining and because the Sask Party (the local awful oil-supporting conservatives) just won again, but I just did my climate change lecture.

Tried to tie it in more to the "homeostatic awakening" idea for solving the Fermi Paradox - civilizations have to use much less energy than we do in order to survive long-term, and then they're undetectable (by our current methods). It's a weird kind of hope, but it's something.

Just a moment...

(royalsocietypublishing.org)

Just had to double check that I wasn't accidentally going to point the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope at Uranus. And then just about died laughing, because Uranus is always funny, even if you're a professional astronomer. https://globalnews.ca/news/9135592/uranus-probe-names/

It's now official, over the next few months, I'll be transitioning in to become one of the 2 co-chairs of the American Astronomical Society's Committee on the Protection of Astronomy and the Space Environment https://compasse.aas.org/

Despite the depressing developments in orbit, this is definitely my favourite committee I've ever been on. The members are AMAZING, we GET SHIT DONE, and it's a perfect way to channel my anger about satellites into powerful and productive actions.

One small glimmer of hope, they haven't counted any of the mail-in ballots yet. (Which means *my* vote hasn't actually been counted yet - so there's one more against my horrible Sask Party MLA waiting to be counted...but I doubt there are 1000 against him waiting to be counted).

Saskatchewan trans folks, I see you, I support you, I will protest with you and for you! I hate the Sask Party so, so much.

FUCK FUCK FUCK

Saskatchewan Party wins 5th consecutive majority government | CBC News

The Saskatchewan Party will remain the governing party of the Prairie province it is named after, with Scott Moe continuing at its helm.

CBC (www.cbc.ca)

At least my friend (who was subject to some incredibly nasty attacks) re-won his seat by a landslide, and NDP gained a lot. But my stupid MLA is going to be another awful Sask Party horrorshow who will probably never respond to my emails and phone calls. I see loads of protests against transphobic policies and funding cuts for education in my future. DAMMIT. I am so tired of conservatives.

Hopefully just lost Starlink some business in the Yukon (I seriously doubt it makes any monetary difference, but at least it makes me feel a little better)

Time to explain all the the ways that Starlink (and other megaconstellations too) are completely terrible for just about everything to the Yukon RASC chapter.

But first, let me check the time zone conversions for the 73rd time! I don't get super nervous before talks anymore (especially not Zoom talks), but I do worry about messing up time zone conversions...

@PhoenixSerenity @obviousdwest WHOA I had no idea they were "donating" starlink equipment to activists. Wow. Good on you for not taking it at face value...techbros NEVER give away stuff for free!

...just in case anyone needs more to be terrified of. Sorry.

You know what you can do? Not buy Starlink internet. (And if Starlink is your only option, write to them as a customer and tell them that you are concerned about their safety practices on the ground and in orbit, and they need to make fewer satellites with longer functional lifetimes)

Also, in case anyone is counting, Starlink is now 63% of all active satellites.

2 out of ever 3 satellites up there now are owned by that awful billionaire. He effectively controls Low Earth Orbit. That should terrify everyone.

My students are writing an exam right now. Only 11 students out of the 12-student, in-person class showed up to this exam, and there are 2 students who I have never seen before. They have never ever come to lecture, not even once. That is... really something.

Did I made my class *too* accessible? (I mean, I skipped loads of classes as an undergrad, but that's because I was at Caltech and the profs all HATED teaching and were bad at it. I sure hope I'm better than that?!) Hmph.

Oh gosh and it's Sask election day too, so I'll be checking for count updates alllll day... come on Saskatchewan, please be just a little bit less racist and transphobic than usual...

In addition to making a final decision and locking in those telescope pointings for this block, I also said I'd give a Zoom talk for the Yukon amateur astronomy club tonight (which I haven't put together yet), one of my classes has a test today, and it's supposed to be -12C on Tues night, so the last of the potatoes need to get harvested and a few more water lines need to get shut off tonight. This is... a lot in one day. Wish me luck!

My giant telescope program actually should have been done already, but the telescope broke for a few months last year. So, the next 4 months will be our last shot at trying to save a couple of our fields (which could be important for testing Planet 9-like theories... or not, depending on what we find)

The dark run is only a week, but it involves a lot of communication with my co-PI, making fast decisions on data from the previous night, and programming the telescope every day.

That was one of the most depressing meetings I've ever attended (space debris committee). A Chinese upper rocket stage exploded in LEO, a huge US sat exploded in GEO, and a SpaceX Crew Dragon just reentered and it's trunk will dump many potentially lethal debris pieces on the ground. AST SpaceMobile dumped a bunch of debris in LEO while unfurling their fucking huge direct-to-cell sats.

And then all the Americans on the call said they were moving in with me if the election goes badly

Another hive-mind question: do you know of any good website/blog that has an aggregate of starlink-photobombed Comet A3 images?

(It seems that a lot of people really woke up to how disruptive Starlink is for astronomy while trying to photograph or even just look at Comet A3 through a telescope.)

My solar system astronomy class lab tomorrow is to build a scale solar system model in the college atrium with post-it notes, pre-measured lengths of string, and a well-placed central protractor. It's a GREAT lab, but it's always so freaking much work to set it up...