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Simeon Schmauß

@stim3on.bsky.social

4.1K followers 650 following 1.2K posts

dabbling with photogrammetry, astrophotography, GIS and more... https://sschmaus.github.io/links/

sschmaus.github.io

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · May 11

Perseverance captured a new selfie to celebrate 1500 Sols on Mars.
The rover is currently investigating the outer rim of Jezero crater near an outcrop named Sally's Cove. #planetsci

Full panorama: www.360cities.net/image/persev...

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Steve Albers/Simeon Schmauß

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Reposted by Simeon Schmauß

ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 4h

🆕Researchers combed through images from ESA's #MarsExpress & #ExoMars spacecraft to find 1039 swirling dust devils 🌪️

Using these dust devils to track raging winds on Mars, their findings include that the strongest winds blow much faster than we thought!

Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🧪 ☄️

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 15h

Pretty much yeah, a dot with a halo around it.
There is a lot of scientific potential in it, but anyone who promises 4K images of that comet is not well informed.

We might get something slightly more interesting later when the JUICE spacecraft will observe 3I/Atlas during it's peak of activity.

Reposted by Simeon Schmauß

CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @cosmicrami.com · 1d

There is an important conversation that should be going on (maybe at the UN level?) about this, as it will become worse with time (as more satellites are orbited).

Nations worked together to build the Montreal Protocol to protect the Ozone Layer.

These constellations threaten all of that work.

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 3d

"There are currently one to two Starlink satellites falling back to Earth every day ... Soon, McDowell told us, there will be up to 5 satellite reentries per day." 😳

1 to 2 Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

earthsky.org

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Reposted by Simeon Schmauß

Seán Doran @theseaning.bsky.social · 1d

'Satellite Swarm Zoom'

A star trail image made with a time-lapse image sequence photographed by Jonny Kim from ISS. Each image was restored, remastered then retimed using frame interpolation for a short film. These new frames allowed for a simulated long exposure photograph.

Stars and satellites glowing in long exposure streaks of light as ISS orbits Earth.

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, that's a good way to think about it :)
3I/Atlas is also very faint and very small, so you'd need something like Hubble out at Mars to get better details.

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

Well, the bright spot in the middle is from the nucleus.
There is a faint halo around it though which is the coma
bsky.app/profile/scie...

ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 1d

Scientists are still analysing the data from both ExoMars and Mars Express, including combining short-exposure shots to see if they can spot the faint comet in Mars Express data.

Their work may help us understand what 3I/ATLAS is made of and how it behaves as it approaches the Sun.

Stay tuned.

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter image of comet 3I/ATLAS

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks for the details!
I'm really looking forward to the images!

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

That makes sense, thanks!

I'm curious how HiRISE will do it. I guess it can't do long exposures with it's push broom type sensor, or is the sensor "long" enough to get a 2D image without using push broom type acquisition?

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

Very cool!
I assume you didn't get get any color information from these observations due to CaSSIS' framelet style focal plane design?

Reposted by Simeon Schmauß

Kevin M. Gill @kevinmgill.bsky.social · 1d

A dust devil was spotted off in the distance following the Perseverance Rover’s Sol 1646 drive.

flic.kr/p/2rxWAaR

A large and distant dust devil vortex in the plains beyond a ridge. Rover hardware is visible.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kevin M. Gill

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

Indeed, and the other dots are stars, but which ones was not indicated in the article and I haven't attempted to identify them yet.

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

I don't think anything as crazy as that. He seems to focus on a lot of half-truths that are easily disproven by experts, but sound plausible to many members of the public or politicians. This makes him so dangerous in my opinion.

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

The first observations from ESA's CASSIS instrument on the TGO spacecraft are in!

ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 1d

First images of comet #3I/ATLAS from Europe's Mars orbiters 😍

Observing the comet from 30 million km away, #ExoMars reveals the halo of gas and dust surrounding the comet's nucleus.

Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...
🔭🧪

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

...but by that logic there should be tons of stars visible in the images if we see Atlas in them too and it would NOT be the brightest thing.
That should be super obvious to an astronomy professor.

I'm really having a hard time seeing good intent in his post.

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

He never even thought to consider other explanations for the Navcam image than 3I/Atlas – Mars moons or even stars are far more likely to be the explanation.
I think he said somewhere Atlas is magnitude 11 from Mars (no idea if that's correct),...

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

Nice work with your live stream too, finally had the time to watch it.
I'm glad you went into a lot more detail than I could with these short posts.
It also shows how hard it is to process these images properly and how careful one needs to be when interpreting them.

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 1d

AFAIK, several orbiters from NASA and ESA captured images. ESA images should be released soon, NASA images will unfortunately take until the government shutdown is over...

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 2d

The annotation could have been better and I changed it in my latest version
bsky.app/profile/stim...

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 4d

Last night, NASA's Perseverance rover looked up at the night sky once more, to capture interstellar #comet 3I/Atlas flying by the red planet.

The distance was "only" 0.2 AU or 30 Mio km, far closer than the comet ever got to Earth. 🔭 #3IAtlas

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon Schmauß

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 2d

FYI, the blue blob is part of the annotation, I just overlayed a Stellarium screenshot over the image before. That's why its a flicker animation.

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Reposted by Simeon Schmauß

Meg Schwamb @megschwamb.bsky.social · 2d

This is complete and utter pompous bullshit. It's telling that of the people proposing it wants to anoint themselves director general when every one of his claims of having discovered technosignature interstellar objects has been debunked by the planetary community. arxiv.org/pdf/2510.01405

arxiv.org

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 2d

I guess some proof can't hurt:
With proper processing of that image and don't just showing the raw version which is super noisy, you can see some familiar stars like Arcturus and the the big dipper.
And that streak is turns out to be exactly where Phobos was in the sky...

Processed version of the Perseverance Navcam image from Sol 1643 with all the noise removed. It shows a much larger area of sky than the infamous raw image because it was stitched from 16 individual tiles which are sent separately.
It shows a dark sky with a couple of stars sprinkled around. The brightest is Arcturus at the top center, and the handle of the big dipper can be seen below. On the left is a bright streak with a halo, this is the moon Phobos.

Sreenshot from Stellarium showing the same Starfield with a red box indicating the FOV of Nacam (not considering the Fisheye nature of that lens).
The stars match up perfectly with Navcam, especially Phobos can be clearly identified as such.
Comet 3I/Atlas is marked in red and should be in the middle of the frame, but is so much darker than any stars in the actual Navcam image that it will be impossible to detect there.

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Reposted by Simeon Schmauß

Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 2d

The effort put into understanding 3I/Atlas has been spectacular, imaginative, professional and well-organized. Planetary scientists don't need Avi Loeb put in charge of an international directorate to tell them how to do their jobs.

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 2d

Check your DMs :)

Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 2d

Oh, also, you totally forgot to consider Mars' rotation in your little calculation of angular speed. (Perseverance can't track the sky).
It just so happens that this totally dwarfs the relative motion of Atlas against the rest of the sky.

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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 2d

No Avi, that Perseverance Navcam picture you posted isn't showing 3I/Atlas, it's just Phobos, the brighter one of Mars' moons.

If you were even half the expert you think you are, this possibility should have been quite obvious and worth mentioning.

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