Paul Leyland
brnikat.bsky.social
Paul Leyland
@brnikat.bsky.social
General purpose scientist, amateur astronomer. Aspie into most anything technical.

Pedantry is something up with which I will always put.

Down, not across.

http://astropalma.com
ITYM M1. HTH, HAND.
December 20, 2025 at 5:22 PM
You mean that North Dakota has pristine dark skies with exceptional seeing?

I'm jealous. Why did you want to leave?
December 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
It is a fallacy that Hawking radiation comes from an event horizon. It comes from curved spacetime.

See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unruh_e... where the temperature of the vacuum at the Earth's surface is given as 4e-20 K.
Unruh effect - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
December 3, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Both Germany and the UK have had leaders with degrees in chemistry

Angela Merkel has a PhD in quantum chemistry.

Margaret Thatcher had an Oxford BA (Oxford has idiosyncratic nomenclature) which included 9 months of research experience.
December 2, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Questions:

1) Will a complete list be posted on-line?
2) Will international shipping be a possibility?
3) How will payment be made?

I ask 2) because I live in Europe. If PayPal is a possibility that will make life much easier for non-US customers.

Thanks,
Paul
November 25, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Behind a paywall 8-(
November 24, 2025 at 4:31 PM
As always, I forgot the 🔭 again. Doh!
November 6, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Not sure a telescope is ideal for watching a meteor shower ...

Looking at the moon, star clusters, planets, double stars, sure.
September 28, 2025 at 3:04 PM
I think he meant to write "Vega".
September 22, 2025 at 7:34 AM
That may be true but here in Europe at least virtually all credit card transactions are made with chip&PIN and I don't believe they are especially sensitive to magnetic fields.

Computer disks on the other hand ...
September 21, 2025 at 9:21 AM
No reason why we can't do both. Or all three if you regard orbital and Martian colonies as separate.
September 13, 2025 at 11:42 AM
What is OU in this context? Open University? Oxford University? Something else?

I was a long-term member of OUAS --- Oxford University Astronomical Society --- but that was decades ago and it may have changed its name since then.
September 12, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Behind a paywall. Is it available elsewhere?
September 11, 2025 at 1:17 PM