Rebecca Milllar
banner
astrobec.bsky.social
Rebecca Milllar
@astrobec.bsky.social
Professional word nerd. Postgrad astrophysics student. Trekkie 🖖 Disabled. Alligator Loki is the superior Loki 🐊 I talk about poverty, rheumatoid arthritis, ADHD, inclusion and astro stuff a lot.
How in the hell did we get to ethnic cleansing in two weeks?
February 5, 2025 at 6:07 AM
Ok I logged in.

Hi 🖤
January 5, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Geologists I promise I love you all, but I've been listening to this dude talk about salt for ages now and I am struggling in astrophysics here.

Also can you confirm if you are actually secretly penguins? Thank you and Go Science!

Ps. Your volcano stuff is super cool.
November 12, 2023 at 4:44 AM
Was distracted with uni, but I'll be setting up a regular Saturday night (AEST) astro zoom chat. Casual place to discuss all things astronomy (work, why Neptune is superior to Jupiter, TESS etc)

Looking at once a month - all welcome! 🔭

Trying to gauge numbers, so let me know if you're interested 🖤
November 12, 2023 at 3:38 AM
Bit too much ableism floating around on the other place right now.

So anyway, I'm all up in plate tectonics today.

What are you lot up to?
November 12, 2023 at 3:34 AM
My brain is completely fried after 3 hours with a psych yesterday 🤯

Thankfully it's a neuroaffirmative clinic, so I could move/doodle on my ipad etc during it else I'd never gotten through it.

Also - watching my ADHD meds kick in on zoom was the weirdest thing ever 😅
August 18, 2023 at 1:46 AM
Uni: This assignment will take you ~64 hours to do.

Me: It's 8 questions wtf

So anyway, 11 pages and over 4000 words later and I have not actually answered a single question yet. This was all inputting/formatting data, assumptions, one equation and one unit conversion...
August 12, 2023 at 3:40 PM
Reposting because I need this for later in my semester (thanks, Andrew!)
August 12, 2023 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Milllar
Folks in Australia - it’s National Science Week! 🧪🔭🎢👩‍🔬

Starting from today, across AUS, you can attend and get involved in so many science activities and events.

Check out the schedule/calendar here. All ages can attend many events, so great for the fam and young people too!
Home - National Science Week
www.scienceweek.net.au
August 11, 2023 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Milllar
Hey folks! I’m starting (or, technically, re-starting) a monthly ✨NEWSLETTER✨ which will contain various writings/speakings by me and some otherwise unpublished physics/astronomy hot takes🔥. Sign up here if you want to check it out! New issue arriving soon! https://mackkatie.activehosted.com/f/1
AstroKatie -
mackkatie.activehosted.com
August 12, 2023 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Milllar
When you see a peer-reviewed scientific journal article, it often says “pay $35 to read this.”

Did you know that $0 of that goes to the authors of the article?

Just email us and we’ll be happy to send you a copy for free. We’re usually thrilled that anyone cares. 🧪🦑🦈
August 11, 2023 at 12:13 PM
Study problems 101: I have read/said/written/heard the word 'quasar' so many times today I feel like my soul is no longer in my body.

IYKYK.
August 12, 2023 at 6:48 AM
What I will be putting in my key topic development for the approval: The Huge-LQG and the large-scale structure of the Universe

What I am actually over here like: FAM, IT'S CALLED THE HUGE LARGE QUASAR GROUP AND IT MAKES THE COSMOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE GO "WTF?!"

I am huge large serious about science.
August 12, 2023 at 2:51 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Milllar
How many of us use Jupyter Notebooks?

This is a long, but important read on how to make our notebooks more accessible to blind and visually impaired people.

Lots of good recommendations, not just with infrastructure, but authoring practices in here.

Pass it on. 🧪🔭
Notably Inaccessible -- Data Driven Understanding of Data Science...
Computational notebooks, tools that facilitate storytelling through exploration, data analysis, and information visualization, have become the widely accepted standard in the data science...
arxiv.org
August 10, 2023 at 4:48 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Milllar
Tarantula Nebula
Imaged: August 9 2023 Scoresby (B7)
Camera: Samsung S22
Mount: Sky-Watcher Australia HEQ5
Telescope: 102mm Doublet Refractor
Eyepiece: 24mm Tele Vue Optics Panoptic
Filter: Optolong L Extreme
55 x 55s Lights
ISO3200
30 Darks
Stack APP & Proc in PS
Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/2oUSikt
230809_Tarantula_Nebula_55I_55S_ISO3200_30D_APP_PS_LExt_V2
Tarantula Nebula Imaged: August 9 2023 Location: Scoresby (Bortle 7) Camera: Samsung S22 Mount: Sky-Watcher Australia HEQ5 Telescope: 102mm Doublet Refractor Eyepiece: 24mm Tele Vue Optics Panoptic Fi...
flic.kr
August 10, 2023 at 2:35 PM
Why 👏 Are 👏 You 👏 Like 👏 This 👏

I legit need info on the prediction Betelgeuse will become a neutron star for uni, and regular search results are like "WHEN WILL BETELGEUSE EXPLODE AND KILL US ALL" while arXiv is like "THAT TIME IT DIMMED AND WE WERE CONFUSED AF, FAM".

So much drama.

Image: ESO
August 10, 2023 at 9:00 AM
My brain: Oooh, very cool cosmology equations!

Also my brain: Wait how do I rearrange a basic af equation?!

^This was the point where I was like "step away from the textbooks...
August 9, 2023 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Milllar
Like astronomy? You should check out the astronomy feed! 🔭

To help the feed grow...
🔄 Reskeet this post
♥️ Like the feed
🔭 Sign up to post in it if you're an astronomer (see thread)

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:jcoy7v3a2t4rcfdh6i4kza25/feed/astro
August 8, 2023 at 5:11 PM
Each week (Fri & Sat evening, AEST) I host virtual study zoom rooms.

Initially set up for fellow #astronomy students, it now extends out to other disciplines across all university levels.

If you're interested in joining, let me know and I'll set up a registration link.

Casual, so BYO study! 🧪🔭
August 3, 2023 at 2:19 PM
I got to speak about #disability in a professional capacity today while supervising an intern and it was actually a really cool moment in my career.

Advocacy sometimes feels like screaming into a void.

But this one definitely hit different and I hope made a small impact.
August 2, 2023 at 2:46 PM
Alt Text 101:

Keep it descriptive only.

Keep it short.

Give it context.

Use keywords.

As an example, instead of 'photo of dog outside', you could say 'a small brown dog lying on the grass under a large oak tree, watching children play in the distance'.
August 2, 2023 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Milllar
Just an A+ Moon all around. 🔭
August 2, 2023 at 2:18 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Milllar
About tonight’s moon 😍
August 2, 2023 at 11:16 AM
Full moon here tonight, and because we've just passed the perigee (357,181km closest distance to Earth on July 31st), it might look a little closer and brighter 🔭🧪

Happy skygazing!

Photo by Bruno Scramgnon: https://www.pexels.com/photo/full-moon-596134/
August 2, 2023 at 8:43 AM
First light! I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing these 🔭

Congrats to all involved, what a fantastic achievement 🧪

Read more about Euclid here:
https://www.euclid-ec.org/euclid-sees-first-light/

Image credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA
August 1, 2023 at 5:41 PM