iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

My wife took my graph paper. I think she's plotting something.

Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

After my astro class a student says during roll call you said (girl-name) and I forgot it was me because I go by (boy-name) now. So I said okay, and I crossed out the old name and wrote in the new one. If I were teaching a course on gender there might be more to the story but no.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

So begins my 32nd year at Spanel Planetarium. 🔭

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The sky is filling with the stars of Autumn, telling their tales of the old gods. 🔭

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

My wife enjoys hearing me talk about my wood working tools until I get to the boring bits.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

"If Andromeda wants to rumble, we'll rumble." ~ The Milky Way 🔭

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Living in or near Seattle for 70 years means I say things like "sunbreaks" and "the mountain is out" and "no-room medium drip."

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

"Oh, Mother Night! Fold your dark arms about me. Protect me in your black embrace."

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I feel the caffeine but I'm still waiting for the pumpkin spice to kick in.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

That time I safely used my Jeep to view an eclipse. Aug 21, 2017 Independence, Oregon, USA. 🔭

Pinhole eclipse images from the breaks in tree leaves on the side of a white Jeep Wrangler.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Planetarium fan mail. Note: I don't actually have a blue skull shirt, green pants, and pink shoes. But I should. 🔭

Child's sketch of me with a laser pointer in the planetarium.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

John Dobson once told me an 8 inch mirror he was working was "Too low in the fingers and too high in the palms." Well John, this one was too high in the arm pits (42.25"). 🔭

Me polishing a 42.25 inch telescope mirror.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

I pointed out the free shipping but my wife still says no. 🎸

Ad for a Martin D-45 guitar for $150,000 but with free shipping.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

I took this photo of Mt Baker and my wife took the shot of me in the kayak on Lake Whatcom and I schmooshed the two together. Photo-schmooshing is an art form right?

Composite photo. A shot of Mt Baker towering above a line of fir trees is place above a shot of me on Lake Whatcom in a kayak.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

In the 1970s Yasuma made a high fidelity hand crafted clone of a Martin D28 guitar. They were quickly sued out of production and the retail stock recalled and destroyed. My wife bought one before the recall. 🎸

Yasuma model 200 acoustic guitar on a stand in front of a Yamaha electric piano.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

In 1969 my family butchered 100 chickens, fried a couple of them and froze the rest. Then we watched humans walk on the moon on TV. Then we all went outside and stared at the moon. 🔭

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Just saw my neighbor's horse shoving on a plank of a board fence with his foot over and over, about to break it, and he is wearing a visor like a card dealer. WTH

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

No I didn't write-in Jimothy for congress. I thought about it.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

We've adopted a dog without intending to. My wife's nephew left it here and we're afraid if we don't feed it it'll eat us.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

A guy calls the hospital and says "Help, my wife is having a baby!" The nurse says "Is this her first child?" The guy says "No, this is her husband."

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

I would have texted you back but my battery pulled a Mitch.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Happy Birthday to Henrietta Swan Leavitt. She found the key that opened the door to our modern view of the cosmos. 🔭

Henrietta Swan Leavitt. July 4, 1868 – December 12, 1921

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

The United States is no longer a collection of British colonies, and Britain is no longer an outpost of Rome, and Rome is no longer a loose confederacy of tribes, and we all evolved from early hominids when a geological rift altered leeward weather patterns in Africa. It makes me so proud.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Summer intro-to-astro classes have started and students are already busy combining their old misconceptions with the material to form new hybrid misconceptions. It's a start. 🔭

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Here is your reminder that from Alpha Centauri the constellations would look pretty much the same except Centaurus would have one less star and Cassiopeia would have one extra. 🔭

Star map of Cassiopeia with the sun to the left side of the W.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Happy Solstice to those who believe in such things (photo by me). 🔭

Stonehenge with sun glaring high above and birds (Rooks) over the stones.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

This is my most recent scope. I have a room-full of astro gear and a very understanding beautiful wife. 🔭

$Red 5" refractor telescope.$

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

My first telescope. This one goes way back. The store I bought it from also rented VHS players. 🔭

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

One thing I've learned for certain from all my years of teaching, is that you can not predict a student's academic ability based on their fashion choices.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Don't know what is on it. Probably a single image file, that's how I use to store them. There's some punch cards around here too.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Moon art. Miller Hall coffee shop, Western Washington University. 🔭

An artistic depiction of lunar phases on the wall over a couple of coffee shop patrons.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Y'all aren't perfect strangers but you're pretty good strangers.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

In the time it takes me to finish this cup of coffee the supermassive blackhole in the core of our galaxy will have spun completely around. One and a half times if I also get the scone, two times if I get the big muffin. 🔭

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Carefully thou shalt walk about the site of observing, lest thou stumble over the cords of power. 🔭

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

I have no way of knowing what life will throw at you but I can assure you that it has good aim.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

As the person who thinks he is in charge of such things, I hereby declare cargo shorts season to be open in the Pacific Northwest.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

My mother "Neakita" (Choctaw word for wild rose) on the right, with her grandmother "Black Granny" a full blood Choctaw medicine woman.

Old B&W photo of two women, a man and a car in the background.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

If any of my students are on here, do not log on to Canvas. Go out and look at the sky, the actual sky. 🔭

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Living in Bellingham is like being in a movie about Seattle that is being filmed in Vancouver.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Tahoma (Mt Ranier) from Chinook Pass. Photo by me.

Mountain under blue sky with a lake in the foreground.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Still the greatest sketch of me ever! 🔭

Child's sketch of me with a telescope and planetarium projector.

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Brad Snowder 🔭 @bradsnowder.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

You know how you can tell the subway train is coming by the slight change in the barometric pressure? That's how I know the 5th graders are approaching the planetarium. 🔭

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