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Russell Smith

@astrorjs.bsky.social
34 followers 61 following 166 posts

Astronomer at Durham University

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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Our PhD/MScR booklet for 2027 entry is out. Lots of interesting projects to choose from... astro.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate...
astro.dur.ac.uk
Postgraduate Opportunities - Durham Astronomy
PhD and MSc postgraduate opportunities in astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, and instrumentation at Durham University. Find out how to apply.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
yeah it's hard to imagine why you got no response from my end
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I feel the picture choice adds to the bathos here
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Used to hear about the "pink pound" or the "silver pound". But the "normal-size bloke pound"? Nobody wants it.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Is it really so much to ask one (1) British clothes shop to cater for the non-lardarse community?
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Just had my first "it's just a tiny cup ya knaa", asking for espresso at Newcastle airport Greggs
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
ah okay so it is not in fact cliff michelmore
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Thinking about putting my revenge jumper up for auction
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Spoilers!
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I don't see that seagull flying
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Anonymized proposals are so dumb
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
We are hiring! Faculty positions in observational and computational group (one each). aas.org/jobregister/...
aas.org
Assistant or Associate Professor in Observational Astronomy | American Astronomical Society
The Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy (CEA), part of Durham University Department of Physics, invites applications for a permanent faculty member at the level of Assistant or Associate Professor.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
dans le south of herts
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Also, telescopes.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Also, telescopes.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
people do have some opinions on a variety of topics don't they
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I suppose it depends how broadly you want to define "comedy"...
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Alex Selby-Boothroyd @alexselbyb.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A handy searchable map that tells you whether your eclipse vantage point tomorrow will already be eclipsed by buildings shademap.app/@51.50738,-0...
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
This is the third separate fire I have seen reported as being of this very specific size. Is it the official threshold for being newsworthy?
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
So probably they all are... I retract my scepticism. The initials could be SCH (for Hall) before it was granted full college status
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Oh wait.. no that one IS a at chads cross
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
And the inset in your picture is not the lions and chevron... Looks like another cross?
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
That's the university crest though, notwithstanding the caption
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Larger cross is a st Cuthbert one though, so Durham for sure...
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Hmm not sure here, those aren't Chad's crests
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Fun title; interesting result
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
New signage. Oof.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
We are hiring! Faculty positions in observational and computational group (one each). aas.org/jobregister/...
aas.org
Assistant or Associate Professor in Observational Astronomy | American Astronomical Society
The Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy (CEA), part of Durham University Department of Physics, invites applications for a permanent faculty member at the level of Assistant or Associate Professor.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Some (not I) would argue that having been taken from Dunelm House it at least doesn't have Dunelm House in it...
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Was just going to ask you if that was plausible, i.e. party identification first for a whole package of reasons, and then following the line on immigration specifically.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Last day in Oxford for a little while
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The timeline
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 19/07/2026
Rejoice! Rejoice at that news!
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 15/07/2026
Nearly there!
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
"I will support you ... but you cannot win", just without the first bit
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
I'm finding it hard to keep up with the Bagpuss extended universe
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Manyaid
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Right on cue, look what I just found in my bathroom. I guess maybe they're having a good year...?
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Terrified me when I first encountered them in my first year at university, tapping loudly at lit windows and buzzing around the porch of our house. Not sure I've ever seen them since.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
arxiv.org/abs/2605.21588
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
In the younger galaxy, the second component is easy to identify: it's basically a carbon star spectrum. Not unexpected, since we know there's a ~1Gyr population here, but isolated very nicely and will help put limits on the TP-AGB contributions.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
... But Mira variables look like this, in the cool, faint part of their pulsation cycles. (And we already saw red variables blinking on and off in our old MUSE data).
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
In the old galaxy, the first component spectrum just looks like normal M giants. Second one has the curvature of a really really cool giant. There are none of those in our regular models...
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Individual stars here are far too faint to extract spectra, so we play the fluctuations game, running a PCA on the pixel spectra. Mapping the component contributions across the field gives a nice colour "image" that maximises the information carried.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
New paper out on the arxiv today. arxiv.org/abs/2605.21588 Here's figure 1, showing the ERIS fields we observed in NGC5128 as an example (mostly) old population, and NGC5102, a post-starburst galaxy.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
And ... paper accepted
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
And my weird "sky" features are the N2+ lines from the aurora, as seen from La Palma (Lat +29).
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
... which is about how long it takes for the charged particles to arrive.
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Russell Smith @astrorjs.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Zooming in, the data with the weird "sky" (red line) were taken ~half a day after the solar flux spiked on 18th Jan...
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