Michael Merrifield

68.4K posts

Michael Merrifield banner
Michael Merrifield

Michael Merrifield

@AstroMikeMerri

Emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of Nottingham. All my own views. Here for interest, so anyone who doesn’t interest me gets blocked.

Nottingham เข้าร่วม Haziran 2011
590 กำลังติดตาม11.1K ผู้ติดตาม
ทวีตที่ปักหมุด
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
Time to update my pinned post, just because this selfie makes me very happy. (Monku View Point on @hermisland, 26 July 2022 at 11PM. 2s exposure on @SonyAlpha 6600 with Samyang 12mm f2 lens, pushed to ISO 10000, just reprocessed with @Lightroom’s amazing AI noise reduction.)
Michael Merrifield tweet media
English
14
8
121
32K
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
And amazingly this echo of a quasar was visible in my back yard last night. Here I compare the original discovery image of this object (from arxiv.org/abs/0906.5304) with my image from last night, both shown as negatives. It’s very faint… but it’s there! 4/4
English
0
0
1
24
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
This bizarre object is the dying echo of a quasar. An active supermassive black hole in the galaxy, which has since faded away, emitted a beam of light or particles that is only now exciting oxygen gas, which glows green. This tells us how rapidly such quasars can shut down. 3/4
English
1
0
0
26
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
Last night I decided to really push my luck with the Celestron Origin to image the remarkably uninspiring spiral galaxy IC 2497. Here it is in the middle of the image: 1/4 🔭🧪
Michael Merrifield tweet media
English
1
0
1
33
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
Last night on the garden camera: just the regulars.
Michael Merrifield tweet mediaMichael Merrifield tweet media
English
0
0
1
76
Tim
Tim@TimurNegru·
69 acres of private Tuscany for €690k ($797k). The land includes an olive grove, a fruit orchard, a cork oak grove and 20 hectares of woodland. A natural spring produces 3,000 litres of water a day, solar panels cover the electricity and yes, it does have wifi. It's also been renovated, 370m² (3,983 sq ft) across 3 floors, 3 beds, 3 baths, with a pool and a sauna. 50 km to Volterra. Off-grid, self-sufficient, sauna, pool..what's missing here?
Tim tweet mediaTim tweet mediaTim tweet mediaTim tweet media
English
717
443
10.6K
1.6M
Elon Musk
Elon Musk@elonmusk·
@Andercot For a long time, physics has consisted of waiting around for a new collider or telescope
English
402
209
3.1K
492.3K
Andrew Côté
Andrew Côté@Andercot·
Physicists: "The greatest issue of our time is that physics is fundamentally incomplete, that we have no firm footing from which to explain our best theories" Also Physicists: "That's completely impossible, the laws of physics forbid it."
English
169
126
1.7K
281.6K
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
@skdh The latest generation of telescopes hasn’t ‘slowed discovery’ in astronomy. And I don’t think I have heard many say that astronomers have lost the plot. Maybe that’s just a less lucrative group to go after, since people really like the pictures and ideas like life elsewhere.
English
0
0
0
89
Sabine Hossenfelder
he's entirely right of course. even if you think he is wrong, at the very least physicists should think about why everyone else agrees they've lost the plot.
Sabine Hossenfelder tweet media
English
331
111
1.5K
92.6K
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
@TRobinsonNewEra Didn’t you try to get into the USA using someone else’s passport a few years back? I guess the lifetime zero tolerance policy only extends so far… (8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(6)(C)(i))
Michael Merrifield tweet mediaMichael Merrifield tweet media
English
0
0
8
272
Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧
Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧@TRobinsonNewEra·
From the streets of Luton to addressing members of congress in the United States of America. This time last year I was in solitary confinement, in a maximum security prison full of Islamic extremists - for the crime of exposing the UK's corrupt government, judiciary, and media in a now deleted documentary called SILENCED. Well @Keir_Starmer your attempt to destroy me hasn't worked, I'm in the USA to give a presentation that will expose every failure of consecutive British governments that have been either unwilling or too cowardly to deal with the civilisational problems we now face. I am here to warn all those in congress, the time is now! People must be politically engaged and prepared to fight the battle that is already here - to save the land of the free. #OpenBorders #Immigration
Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 tweet media
English
2.1K
6.8K
30.7K
685.1K
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
Lovely day for a visit to Clumber Park. Part 2: the birds.
Michael Merrifield tweet mediaMichael Merrifield tweet mediaMichael Merrifield tweet mediaMichael Merrifield tweet media
English
0
0
0
141
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
Lovely day for a visit to Clumber Park. Part 1: the flowers.
Michael Merrifield tweet mediaMichael Merrifield tweet mediaMichael Merrifield tweet mediaMichael Merrifield tweet media
English
0
0
5
144
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
@NeilDotObrien Shouldn’t a journalist find out what fraction of these entrants are mature students for whom A-levels would likely not be appropriate? You know, if they weren’t pursuing a specific agenda rather than actually reporting…
English
0
0
1
37
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
@SianGriffiths6 Shouldn’t a journalist find out what fraction of these entrants are mature students for whom A-levels would likely not be appropriate? You know, if they weren’t pursuing a specific agenda rather than actually reporting…
English
0
0
1
41
Nick Hillman
Nick Hillman@nickhillman·
I have a question of supreme (educational) pedantry. Is it ‘syllabuses’ or ‘syllabi’? Years ago, I was taught to use the former (eg on applications for teaching jobs) but I know the latter is common, as here, and the @guardian style guide is, oddly, silent on the matter.
Nick Hillman tweet media
English
5
0
1
539
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
“We want to set the record straight” says @UKRI_News… and then immediately goes on to misrepresent the expenditure on curiosity-driven research by including all QR funding in that “bucket”, though it knows full well that QR does not all go to fund curiosity-driven research.
Michael Merrifield tweet media
English
0
4
8
563
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
Garden camera update: squirrels are not sensible.
English
2
0
8
384
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
Such a nice night that I stayed up to image a 2nd target, the spiral galaxy NGC 2903. As an experiment, I left Celestron’s nebula filter in. It lost stellar continuum light, but did a lovely job picking up the emission lines that characterise star formation in the spiral arms.
Michael Merrifield tweet media
English
0
0
12
272
Michael Merrifield
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri·
Inspired by last night’s success pointing the Origin south across Nottingham, I had a go at imaging a very well-known piece of sky even lower in the gap between roofs. I think the Horsehead Nebula came out rather nicely.
Michael Merrifield tweet mediaMichael Merrifield tweet media
English
1
0
13
280