Benny Trakhtenbrot
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Benny Trakhtenbrot
@bennytr.bsky.social
Drinking coffee, watching black holes grow. z=0.
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
First Light for 4MOST - what an experience! Paranal Observatory is already a magic place on its own right - but getting a new facility on sky ... that's hard to top! www.aip.de/en/news/4mos...
4MOST Captures First Light
On October 18, 2025, the 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) facility, installed on the VISTA telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile, obta
www.aip.de
October 21, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
October 2, 2025 at 10:49 AM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
August 13, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
Glad the Apollo 13 movie is getting reruns lately.
This scene is even more moving today: right, Tom Hanks playing Jim Lovell; left, cameo appearance by actual Jim Lovell (1928 Mar 25 - 2025 Aug 7).
August 8, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
Yesterday we released our nineteenth data release into the wild: www.sdss.org/dr19, let’s now take a closer look on what is in this data release. #DR19
July 11, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
Radio astronomer Cyril Hazard (1928-2025), one of the discoverers of quasars, died on Jun 14. In 1963 Hazard got an accurate location for 3C48 and 3C273 using lunar occultation, allowing optical astronomers to find the optical counterparts and measure their redshift.
June 16, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
It's finally here! We've just released all of our COSMOS-Web images and catalogs, along with an interactive viewer where you can explore the data! Check it out at: cosmos2025.iap.fr
June 5, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
A key portion of #NASARoman has cleared a thermal vacuum test. Tt was subjected to the hot and cold temperatures it will experience in space: go.nasa.gov/43cwDQL 🔭 🧪
May 8, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
TANK vs TESLA

"We've crushed fascism before and we'll crush it again"

- ⁠WW2 veteran Ken, 98, in the tank
May 7, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
Happy 80th anniversary of Hitler killing himself in his bunker to all who celebrate, which, as I now understand it, is not everybody
April 30, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
When even the neutral Swiss hate you...
March 14, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
We plan to spend a few weeks over the summer in Boston (July and August) and are looking for a place to stay (2 adults and 2 children). If you hear of anything please let me know. 🙏
January 18, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
some ways to generate electricity

A) use sunlight to drive photosynthesis in plants, let plants die, wait ~100 million years, dig up fossilized plants, burn plants, use heat to boil water, use steam to drive a rotating turbine, use generator to make electrons

B) use sunlight to make electrons
January 17, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
Human Altitude xkcd.com/3039
January 18, 2025 at 6:12 AM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
Edwin Hubble submitted his paper "A relation between distance and radial velocity among extra-galactic nebulae" #OTD in 1929.

It showed that "extra-galactic nebulae" were moving away from us with a velocity that increased linearly with distance. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️

Image: Carnegie Observatories
January 17, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
This week's BHM paper highlight is "Exploring Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey V: First Year Results" by Zeltyn et al. (2024). The paper can be found here: arxiv.org/abs/2401.01933
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Exploring Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei with the Sloan...
"Changing-look" active galactic nuclei (CL-AGNs) challenge our basic ideas about the physics of accretion flows and circumnuclear gas around supermassive black holes. Using first-year Sloan...
arxiv.org
August 14, 2024 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Benny Trakhtenbrot
From Megan Masterson: Today's paper uncovers new changing-look AGN in the first year of the SDSS-V survey! 🔭🧪

astrobites.org/2024/01/23/c...
A First Glimpse at Changing-Look AGN with SDSS-V
Today’s paper uncovers new changing-look AGN in the first year of the SDSS-V survey!
astrobites.org
January 23, 2024 at 3:52 PM