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Michael Merrifield

@astromikemerri.bsky.social
5.6K followers 599 following 4.1K posts

Emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of Nottingham. Too frequent appearances on YouTube. All my own views.

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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 1h
Today’s 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #BlueSkies, so here’s a chiffchaff posing above me against a deep blue sky.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 9h
A little food for thought on widening participation in higher education. astromikemerri.substack.com/p/discrimina...
astromikemerri.substack.com
Discrimination Has Many Victims
I have just plotted these data as a reminder that by far the most underrepresented group of school leavers in higher education are white working-class [as indicated by eligibility for free school meal...
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Today's 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #WingsOpenNotFlying, so here’s a heron stretching its wings.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
today's 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Black&Red, so here’s a red kite with moulting black wing tips, which I saw recently over the Erewash Nature Reserve.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Continuing an exploration of some of the less well-known star-forming regions of our galaxy, in this case a part of the huge IC 1318 nebula which shows a nice mix of absorption by dark clouds of dust and emission from the edges of gas clouds irradiated by young stars. 🧪🔭
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Amused to discover that, as well as establishing my place as a hate figure in some quarters, my paper with Don Saari inventing distributed peer review (arxiv.org/abs/0906.1943) also brings my Erdős Number down to 3 (me → Donald G. Saari → Harry S. Pollard → Paul Erdős). 🧪
arxiv.org
Telescope Time Without Tears: A Distributed Approach to Peer Review
The procedure that is currently employed to allocate time on telescopes is horribly onerous on those unfortunate astronomers who serve on the committees that administer the process, and is in danger o...
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Finally a clear night, so a look at our near neighbour, NGC 7331, where, 45 million years ago, a massively compressed white dwarf star managed to rip enough matter from a companion to trigger a set of explosive nuclear reactions, a Type Ia supernova. (Here compared to a picture I took in 2024). 🔭🧪
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Today's 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay is #BestBeaks, which is an excellent excuse to show some puffins at Bempton Cliffs.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Guess where we’ve been…
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
A little more ground testing…
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I made the mistake of watching an air soft video on Facebook. Now my feed is full of breathy whispered commentaries from grown men playing soldiers.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Where the cool kids were hanging out at Netherfield Lagoons yesterday. 🪶
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Today’s #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Black&White, so here is a black-and-white blackbird.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
What are those owls arguing about tonight? (Sound up!) 🪶
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Ted Lasso is so unsubtle in the way it manipulates my emotions. I love it.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A gorgeous afternoon, so off for a stroll around Netherfield Lagoons and on down to the Trent. 🪶
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Today's 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #BestOfTheMonth, so here’s my favourite for September, a glowering one-legged heron.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
To be fair, senior management that blew close to £100m on a direly implemented IT project and a hopelessly ill-considered real estate investment, followed by panicked steps to save money to balance the books, wasn’t what the staff signed up to, either. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Student: University of Nottingham strikes 'not what we signed up for'
The University of Nottingham said it was "disappointed" by the timing of industrial action.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
NOOOOOO!
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
PSA: in the UK, Covid levels are rising (happily from a low baseline), and flu season is starting very early. If you are vulnerable, worth considering giving your immune system a boost. (www.gov.uk/government/s...)
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Today’s 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #EFG, so here’s a European GoldFinch. (All the right letters, not necessarily in the right order.)
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Oh, Avi, we aren’t jealous of you; we’re embarrassed by you. The way you fabricated a probability of aliens on 3I/ATLAS to be just below 50%, so you can say “I told you so” when it wasn’t, while keeping your name in the tabloid headlines, was excruciating. 🔭🧪 www.politico.com/news/magazin...
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This morning’s picture was a side quest on my pilgrimage to this grave in the churchyard of St Stephen's, Sneinton. 27 years living in Nottingham, and this was my first visit. 🧪
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Here’s a scientific brain teaser for you: what is the function of this building? Currently under wraps to make it a little more challenging! 🧪
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Resident fox surveying his domain.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Today's 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #BokehBirds, so here is a pair of gannets against a blurry Bempton Cliffs.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Not exactly a flight test, but closer than I was expecting on a first attempt!
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Today’s 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Seabirds, with an alt of #Airborne, so here’s a gannet looking for room to land.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Today's 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Pairs, so here is a pair of my garden’s most recent arrivals.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“That’s no hula hoop…”
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A rare visit by the local robin to the feeder, much to the indignation of one of its usual patrons. 🪶
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Today’s 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Borbs, so here is a fully-inflated frigate bird.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A glorious sunset at the end of my street.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Today’s 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #TheDivers, so here’s an unassuming New Zealand grebe.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Today’s 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Raptors, so here are a couple of confrontational buzzards.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Nothing terribly exotic on the garden camera today…
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Well it looks vaguely like an aircraft…
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Today's #BirdOfTheDay 🪶 theme is #Redheads, so here’s a rather handsome green woodpecker.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Garden camera update: the midnight patrol passing through.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Plane-on-a-plate; think it’ll fly?
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The #BirdOfTheDay theme today is #LightAndShadow, so here’s a hobby catching a little sun. 🪶
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Today's #BirdOfTheDay is #CaptionThatBird 🪶 “It’s that way, lads!”
One greylag goose is rearing up out of the water, and seems to be pointing its wings in a direction that its six companion geese are swimming in a V formation
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Once again I have been plotting data, this time to try to understand why higher education funding is at crisis point. (astromikemerri.substack.com/p/the-fundin...)
astromikemerri.substack.com
The Funding Crisis in Higher Education
And Who Is To Blame
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Today’s 🪶 #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Elegant, so here’s a rather dapper razorbill.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
“I changed my mind. Can you stick it all back on again, please?”
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The world’s tiniest boarding pass for the world’s tiniest passenger plane homewards.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Today's #BirdOfTheDay 🪶 theme is #Paridae, so here are a couple of blue tits jockeying for position at the feeder.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
We had the beach not quite to ourselves this morning.
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Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Today's #BirdofTheDay theme is #ODG, any owl duck or goose, so here’s a tawny owl caught by my garden camera.
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