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David Wilson

@astrodave2.bsky.social
988 followers 503 following 386 posts

Astronomer at CU Boulder. I look at small stars with space telescopes. In my spare time I run medium distances, build and paint various tiny plastic people and visit old ships. He/Him

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Reposted by David Wilson
Kelly Lepo @kellylepo.bsky.social · 18h
My first thought when looking at this: very cool, but what planet is it? It's the Earth🤦‍♀️ Why does the Earth look smooth and featureless, other than the auroral ring? It's because Smile is an ultraviolet telescope, and Earth's atmosphere is opaque at ultraviolet wavelengths shorter than ~300 nm.
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Brave/lazy bird on the feeder just now #birds
A small bird sits on a feeder, aware and completely unbothered by the person holding a phone 30cm away
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Reposted by David Wilson
Sarah Tuttle @niais.cryptoanarchy.network · 21/08/2026
Some fun Swift facts: 1) For a long time (still?), someone on the team always had a pager with them connected to the telescope. If there were issues, the telescope would page whoever was on call 2) UVOT on Swift, although not the primary instrument, has been a crucial UV window into the universe.
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Swift proposal accepted --> boost mission fails Chandra proposal accepted --> instrument I need breaks Hubble proposal accepted 😬😬😬😬😬😬😬
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Brb, just got to paint a face on my colander
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Reposted by David Wilson
Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 10/08/2026
#NASAWebb imaged the Lion Nebula in near- and mid-infrared light just in time for #WorldLionDay. The stellar core, looking like the lion’s “nose,” is responsible for sculpting the nebula’s complex gas and dust structures: news.stsci.edu/4x639kM
Planetary nebula NGC 2392, the Lion Nebula, against the black background of space. The nebula is at center, circular in shape, and looks like a male lion’s head. In the very center is a small, pinkish-white circle with eight-point diffraction spikes, a white dwarf star. Surrounding the star are light purple-pink cavernous bubbles and shell-like rings. The bubbles and shells collectively form an oval with two small, wide arcs near the top, reminiscent of a lion’s face and its ears. What appears to be extended outward from the lion’s face is a thick ring of purple-blue material. The width of the ring is consistent throughout and resembles a mane. The area closest to the lion’s face looks cloudy, while the edges of the mane look like there are clumps of dust with comet-like tails and strands. In the background are distant galaxies and stars. Some galaxies appear as yellow and orange points of light and others with visible spiral structures. A couple of the stars have diffraction spikes.
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
If any exoplanet astronomers need an idea for an April Fools paper, an analysis of this atmosphere could be an... explosive read 🔭 #exoplanet
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Reposted by David Wilson
David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Co-author paper day! Very happy to contribute to this work led by Mairi O'Brien, pointing Hubble and Swift at some cool binary stars arxiv.org/abs/2607.11320 🔭 lasp.colorado.edu/2026/07/13/h...
lasp.colorado.edu
Hubble Space Telescope reveals hidden white dwarf stars in four nearby star systems
An international team of astronomers has directly detected four nearby white dwarfs that had remained hidden in binary star systems, though their presence had been posited for decades. The study used ...
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Co-author paper day! Very happy to contribute to this work led by Mairi O'Brien, pointing Hubble and Swift at some cool binary stars arxiv.org/abs/2607.11320 🔭 lasp.colorado.edu/2026/07/13/h...
lasp.colorado.edu
Hubble Space Telescope reveals hidden white dwarf stars in four nearby star systems
An international team of astronomers has directly detected four nearby white dwarfs that had remained hidden in binary star systems, though their presence had been posited for decades. The study used ...
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Pippin, about to say "we've had one, yes"
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Reposted by David Wilson
Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 24/04/2026
Well, isn’t this a sight for sore eyes! 😍 Our beloved Hubble appears in this amazing image from one of Vantor's WorldView Legion satellites. It was 36 years ago today that Hubble was launched in the bay of the Space Shuttle Discovery from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Vantor.
A detailed image of the Hubble Space Telescope floating in space, showing its solar panels and cylindrical body in space.
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NASA | ESA Space Updates @nasaupdates.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
#Artemis II - Photo 2 from yesterdays flyby ECLIPSE. April 6, 2026. Totality, beyond Earth. From lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, revealing a view few in human history have ever witnessed. Photo: NASA 🚀🌕🌑
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NASA | ESA Space Updates @nasaupdates.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
#Artemis II - We have the first image from yesterdays Lunar flyby captured by the crew on Orion EARTHSET. April 6, 2026. Humanity, from the other side. First photo from the far side of the Moon. Captured from Orion as Earth dips beyond the lunar horizon. 🚀🌕🌍
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Douglas Reyes-CeroÑ @dreyesceron.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
ok one more, for the Mass Effect 1 fans out there, I always consider this to be the Peak of Chill Vibing In Space Music
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Chris Schaller @hicommander.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Just an incredible shot right here.
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MAST - Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes @mast-news.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
New HLSP: TESS-3I light curves of comet 3I/ATLAS in Jan 2026. Note: the animation is not astrometrically aligned across frames, so apparent "motion" side-to-side is not the absolute motion of the object. Residuals may be in some frames: these are not outburst events. archive.stsci.edu/hlsp/tess-3i
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Sarah Kendrew @sarahkendrew.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
I'm going to expand this statement to say that astronomers should actually look at their data whatever the format. Yes pipelines and high level science products are great, but you learn a lot from just spending some time exploring the counts-on-pixels images, even for spectroscopy. 🔭
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers is very good, actually.
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Peter Coles 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 🇮🇪 @telescoper.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
Barddoniaeth ar gyfer Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Well, today is St David's Day so let me first offer a hearty "Dydd Gwŷl Dewi Sant hapus i chi gyd" (Happy St David's Day to you all). Here is a picture of some daffodils amid the undergrowth in my garden: Over the years, I seem to have established a tradition…
telescoper.blog
Barddoniaeth ar gyfer Dydd Gŵyl Dewi
Well, today is St David's Day so let me first offer a hearty "Dydd Gwŷl Dewi Sant hapus i chi gyd" (Happy St David's Day to you all). Here is a picture of some daffodils amid the undergrowth in my garden: Over the years, I seem to have established a tradition of posting a bit of poetry to mark this special day for Wales and the Welsh and given current events I chose this one which I have posted before, about 9 years ago.
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Happy No Sleep Ever Again Day to all the transient astronomers out there! 🔭
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 25/02/2026
"NSF-DOE Rubin issued 800,000 alerts the night of Feb. 24. The alerts called scientists' attention to new asteroids, exploding stars and other changes in the night sky. This milestone marks the launch of a system expected to eventually produce up to 7 million alerts per night." 🔭🧪
nsf.gov
NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory launches real-time discovery machine for monitoring the night sky
The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, has released its first alerts documenting…
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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Super proud of my brilliant Honours student @katelynsmith.bsky.social with her first-author debut on arXiv today: arxiv.org/abs/2602.18085 Europeans - look out for her starting her PhD in Amsterdam!
arxiv.org
The attempted polarity reversal and evolving magnetic environment of AD Leo
In the past two decades, the observed large-scale magnetic field of the active M dwarf star AD Leo has evolved from strongly to mildly negative, raising a suspicion that it might switch polarity. Alth...
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Didn't tighten the screws of the tripod enough... 🔭
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Saw Jupiter with my eyes through a 3.5 m telescope last night, was pretty good 🔭
A picture of Jupiter with lots of detail, the Great Red Spot and the bands are clearly visible. It's not a great image - think how hard it is to take a picture of the moon with your phone, it was similarly bright!Picture of me in front of the 3.5m telescope at Apache Point Observatory
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Orion over Apache Point Observatory 🔭
A star filled sky. The Orion constellation is in the top left. In the bottom left is a tree
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Just saw the SDSS telescope in person! 🔭
Mostly dark image with a stubbly telescope silhouetted against the sunset sky
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Reposted by David Wilson
Sarah Tuttle @niais.cryptoanarchy.network · 12/02/2026
Just a reminder that I'm hiring! Looking for an engineer/research for some fun projects (some building! some designing!) Come build spectrographs at UW.
wd5.myworkdaysite.com
Research Scientist/Engineer 2 (E S UAW Research)
Job Description The University of Washington (UW) Astronomy Department has an outstanding opportunity for a researcher who will have responsibilities in the design, development, construction, and test...
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Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Astronomers: highly recommend this thoughtful opinion piece by @hogg.bsky.social on how to think about our field in light of the development of large language models. whether you agree with him or not it’s vital to discuss the principles behind our science. 🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2602.10181
arxiv.org
Why do we do astrophysics?
At time of writing, large language models (LLMs) are beginning to obtain the ability to design, execute, write up, and referee scientific projects on the data-science side of astrophysics. What implic...
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Preeti Chhibber @runwithskizzers.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
omg everybody go draw a horse this is what the internet was made for gradient.horse
gradient.horse
gradient.horse
Draw a horse, watch it run!
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 06/02/2026
Binary Star xkcd.com/3203/
Comic. [Over dark background, a five-pointed pentagram-style star orbits around a white circle with a smaller orbit.] [caption] Space news: Astronomers have found the first known system with a main-sequence star orbited by a five-pointed one.
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Royal Astronomical Society @royalastrosoc.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
The Royal Astronomical Society is gravely concerned at the drastic cuts to support for UK astronomy outlined by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Read our statement 👉 ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...
ras.ac.uk
Proposed budget cuts a catastrophe for UK astronomy
The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is gravely concerned at the drastic cuts to support for UK astronomy outlined by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (...
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Dr. Jessie Christiansen @aussiastronomer.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
*cough* A little bit of extra info to add here: There's only one transit, so the true period is unknown. It could be anywhere between 300 and 550 days. This is an exciting candidate! But (a) we don't know if it's real, and (b) we don't know what its temperature is if it IS real.
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Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin’s autobiography is just amazing. Every astronomer should read it. Here she is talking about her memories of Annie Jump Cannon.
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Luke Ontario @coolhand.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Beautiful graphic of the day (because that should be a thing: Our Solar System By my data hero Eleanor Lutz
An annotated map of the solar system with hundreds of solar elements in beautiful rings
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
And we are up on arXiv! arxiv.org/abs/2601.01628 🔭
arxiv.org
The MUSCLES Extension for Atmospheric Transmission Spectroscopy: Spectral energy distributions for 20 exoplanet host stars that JWST observed in Cycle 1
Correctly interpreting JWST spectra of close-in exoplanets requires a measurement of the X-ray and ultraviolet light that the planets receive from their host stars. Here we provide spectral energy dis...
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Yay go Pandora! 🔭
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Andy Rivkin @asrivkin.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
I'll share this again for 2026 and for any new influx--well over 100 planetary scientists here on Bluesky. Given <waves hands around> they may not necessarily be posting much about planetary science, but that's how it goes. If you're a planetary scientist and want to be on the list, DM me!
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
ok look
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
And we are up on arXiv! arxiv.org/abs/2601.01628 🔭
arxiv.org
The MUSCLES Extension for Atmospheric Transmission Spectroscopy: Spectral energy distributions for 20 exoplanet host stars that JWST observed in Cycle 1
Correctly interpreting JWST spectra of close-in exoplanets requires a measurement of the X-ray and ultraviolet light that the planets receive from their host stars. Here we provide spectral energy dis...
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 30/12/2025
Three professional football players v. one enthusiastic space hopper owner, place your bets
Four miniatures from Blood Bowl. Three large humans surround a much smaller snotling. The snotling has the ball and is sitting on a larger ball.
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
Looking around my childhood bookshelves, wondering if just one book can really be said to be my origin st- oh that's it, that's the one
Cover of the Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
Moon rocks
Picture of the moon in daytime, faintly seen through a gap in some rocks
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Dr. Raphael Marschall @spacemarschall.net · 26/12/2025
Final of ✨ #planetaryScience image of 2025 ✨ is here: Uranus vs. Earth or outer vs. inner Solar System 🗳️ The vote link is 3 posts down. Voting ends on Tuesday, Dec. 30, at 3 p.m. UTC/4 p.m. CET/10 a.m. EST/7 a.m. PST/midnight JST. 🧪⚛️
Bracket for "BSky Planetary Science Image of 2025" contest, featuring small icons of 16 images grouped into four quarter-finals. Then there were two semi-finals and the filled in spots of the final with Uranus on the left and a lightning into the Earths atmosphere on the right. There are winner placeholders is still just a question mark. All is set on a lunar surface backdrop.
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Micah @rincewind.run · 25/12/2025
Discworld QOTD, from Hogfather
All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Experiments with phone, telescope and cold fingers 🔭
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Yay early Christmas present!!! All these stars will soon be yours 🔭
Dear Dr. Wilson,

I am happy to accept your paper for publication in The Astronomical Journal. The reviewer's final report is included below for your information. Minor corrections can still be made when you receive your proofs.
Oh heck, um, two plots showing a lot of spectra of stars. The top plot shows the entire spectral energy distribution (SED) of the stars from the X-ray to the infrared. On the right is a colourbar showing that the stars are coloured by temperature, with purple being the hottest and yellow the coolest. The stars are scaled to the Earth Equivalent Installation Distance, or the distance where a planet would receive the same amount of energy as the Earth from the Sun. The lower plot zooms in on the X-ray to ultraviolet range and is scaled to the distance of each star's actual planet. The Sun at Earth is shown in black on both plots. The immediate takeaway is that these stars are all brighter than the Sun in the X-ray and ultraviolet.
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Dr. Raphael Marschall @spacemarschall.net · 24/12/2025
We have our final matchup for #planetaryScience image of the year. It's Uranus vs. Earth. We'll take a short break before voting. The vote starts on Dec. 26 at 3:00 p.m. UTC. Uranus image: NASA/ESA/CSA/ @stsci.edu/ @andrealuck.bsky.social CC BY Earth image: ISS, @stim3on.bsky.social
Final machup of planetary science image of the year with "Uranus as seen by JWST" vs "Gigantic TLE above Mexico seen from the ISS".

Uranus image description:
Image of planet Uranus taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Source: www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/54879990600/sizes/o/
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/AndreaLuck CC BY
Colourised image created processing data from: mast.stsci.edu
Instrument: NIRCAM
Title: CAL-NRC-421: NIRCam Linearity Characterization
Target: Uranus
Time: 2025-10-06
Filters: F150W2-F162M, F410M
Observation ID: jw08975-o001_t001_nircam_f150w2-f162m-sub320, jw08975-o001_t001_nircam_clear-f410m-sub320

Description Earth:
On July 3rd, astronaut Nichole Ayers photographed a gigantic jet from the ISS. These rare upward directed electrical discharges extend ~90-100 km high into the mesosphere.

The jet originated from a thunderstorm over Northern Mexico, with city lights from South Texas and the green airglow layer visible along Earth’s limb.

I processed this image from the RAW file, adjusting the color profile, white balance and contrast and applied Lightroom's machine learning denoise with low strength.

The RAW was provided to me by Frankie Lucena, his analysis of the event, correlating it to measurements from the Geostationary Lightning mapper and ELF-VLF radio signals can be found here: https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=224355

City annotations referenced from Riccardo Rossi:
https://x.com/RikyUnreal/status/1942367538714734609

Original image listing in the NASA archive: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=ISS073&roll=E&frame=281502

Credit: Nichole Ayers / NASA JSC / ESRS / Simeon Schmauß
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Dr. Susan E. Mullally @mustaric.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Remember those red spots next to two white dwarf stars that looked like possible planets in JWST images that we found? We just had a paper accepted that continues to tell the story.
media.tenor.com
a group of minions are standing next to each other and they are laughing and saying yay
ALT: a group of minions are standing next to each other and they are laughing and saying yay
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Milky Way over Pembrokeshire, one flight, three trains and not enough sleep later 🔭
The Milky Way appears as a dense strip of stars running from top to bottom in the middle of the photo. At the bottom is the roof of a house.
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David Wilson @astrodave2.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Milky Way over Pembrokeshire, one flight, three trains and not enough sleep later 🔭
The Milky Way appears as a dense strip of stars running from top to bottom in the middle of the photo. At the bottom is the roof of a house.
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