Astronomy

Waiting for Christmas

JWST is the only game in town, at least for the rest of my career. The Juicy…

Waiting for the year 7541

It was my grandfather who taught me that a good sermon has to have three parts. So, this is part one.

The Thuringian Observatory: Episode 1

It seemed simple enough. On one side of the observatory we had grown-ups: scientists, the…

The art of proposal writing

Why am I reading this?

Astronomers use telescopes. But telescope time is a limited resource, that means, access to the telescopes is strictly regulated. The most common way to get access to the big machines is by asking for time through an…

A short history of Scotland’s largest telescope

The horror of hack days

It’s not that bad, by the way. It can be pretty good, to be honest. With the right people, in the right place, in the right environment, with lots of encouragement and open doors and good coffee, it can be incredibly fantastic. But there are reasons why I spend a lot of time avoiding…