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Fraser Cain

@fcain.universetoday.com
4.2K followers 1.8K following 596 posts

Space journalist and skywatcher. I'm the publisher of Universe Today (universetoday.com) and co-host of Astronomy Cast (astronomycast.com). YouTube: www.youtube.com/@frasercain

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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 19/02/2026
Oh, the total disrespect of IP on behalf of the AI companies makes this DOA. However, what if there was a version where the training was done totally ethically? (Yes, I understand that's a ridiculous thing to say). It would still not require physical production.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 19/02/2026
I agree, but would they be required to physically make the things? Just provide their expertise at the appropriate point of the production process?
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 19/02/2026
That's a fantastic point, the resulting movie can't be protected by copyright. Hmm.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 17/02/2026
Right, but what happens if an AI company offers an author big money to turn their book into a movie? And nobody from the movie industry gets any work? Will authors side with the studios and film workers, or will they take the money?
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 17/02/2026
Right, so if an AI company offers an author a lot of money to make a movie with their IP, but without anyone from the movie industry getting any work, should the author accept it?
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 16/02/2026
I'm not saying this is a thing I want, I'm noting that this could be a wedge to drive between authors and the movie industry.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 16/02/2026
I have been summoned. In the short term, I think Youtube's enabling of AI slop is destroying the platform and driving people away. AI;DW. But maybe they're making a gamble that it'll get good enough quickly enough to stop an audience revolt? If it was genuinely great, then we'd have to respect it.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 16/02/2026
If the AI bubble does pop, I wonder if energy infrastructure will be the overbuilt asset this time around. It was dark fiber in the 2000 internet bubble and tracks in the railway bubble a century ago.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 16/02/2026
I watched that new Brad Pitt versus Tom Cruise AI video and it's scary good. Obviously, there are all kinds of problems and you can still tell, but for how much longer? What will authors do when AI companies offer them serious money for rights to convert books into AI movies?
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 13/10/2025
Thanks for putting together the Perseverance pictures. :-)
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 09/10/2025
You should work with them to understand them so you understand their limitations. They're not going away. That said, they're best for throwaway code, so focus on making simple throwaway gadgets that solve your specific needs. Don't try to make anything production ready.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 22/09/2025
Yeah, I ditched grammarly.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 19/09/2025
As long as it had really good reporting, it would absolutely be viable. We do space news and pay the bills purely from our patrons.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 16/09/2025
Fantastic reporting. Can you imagine what would happen if someone actually supplied the funding to enable all this pent up enthusiasm for space exploration and interstellar travel?
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 10/09/2025
Not touching that with a 10-ft pole. I already ranted about how hard it's going to be to battle the disinformation.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 10/09/2025
Just a quick meeting with my editor to see why I've been neglecting to refill my bird-feeder.
A squirrel reviews my work.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 28/08/2025
It's recoverable, it'll just take commitment from future leaders to embrace science. But it's pretty bad right now.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 27/08/2025
I just came back to work after being away from my desk for almost a week. I'm catching up to all my newsfeeds in my RSS reader and it's overwhelming, of course. Except for NASA feeds. They are... sparse. So little research news coming out of NASA.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 01/07/2025
Yeah! Moar planetz. Moar!
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 01/07/2025
No idea.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 27/06/2025
Feed a bear a waffle, you feed him for a day. Teach a bear to make waffles and you've fed him for a lifetime and hopefully he'll share with you.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 27/06/2025
Then he'd just come back looking for more food, becoming completely habituated and dangerous. As they say, a fed bear is a dead bear. But I am planting berries and fruit trees, so he can assemble his own waffles.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 26/06/2025
We're pre-huckleberries, but the salmon berries are in full effect right now.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 26/06/2025
I wonder if I should answer the doorbell? Pretty skinny bear, hopefully he'll fatten up now that berry season is here.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 16/06/2025
It's always great when the guest has a good audio setup. Our recording software can tweak the audio a little bit too now, so really bad guest audio is becoming a thing of the past.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 05/06/2025
You were awesome, video is coming next week...
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 29/04/2025
I'm up to three nights with the same targets and the images are getting better and better. No need for the AI denoise at this point.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 24/04/2025
And then other papers talking about how DMS can form in interstellar clouds. arxiv.org/abs/2504.16236
arxiv.org
Gas-phase formation routes of dimethyl sulfide in the interstellar medium
Context: Dimethyl sulfide (DMS; CH$_3$SCH$_3$) is an organosulfur compound that has been suggested as a potential biosignature in exoplanetary atmospheres. In addition to its tentative detections towa...
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 24/04/2025
Oh wow, okay, I'll try doing a multi-night session on the Iris.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 24/04/2025
I wondering how to do that with the Seestar. maybe have it shoot in raw and then stack in Pixinsight? I don't think it can keep working on an image across several nights.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 24/04/2025
Yeah, I'm so used to only getting a couple of minutes to image. These cooked for about an hour each. I wonder what happens if I give it 6 hours on one target. Or multiple nights.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 24/04/2025
Another clear night of using the Seestar S50. I set this up in Plan mode, picked 4 targets and went to bed. The pictures were waiting for me on the telescope when I got up. Neat.
Galaxy NGC 4631Galaxy NGC 5907Nebula imagePinwheel galaxy
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 24/04/2025
Yup, you only need the Podcast+, the red one.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 24/04/2025
Did you calculate the size of Earth?
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 23/04/2025
I've been on support with them for 3 hours now.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 23/04/2025
The enshittification of podcasting is in full effect. I recently changed my podcast hosting provider and it "broke" the feed on both Apple and Spotify. The new feed works fine, and new episodes download on all podcatching apps. But not those two, because... walled gardens.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 22/04/2025
That was just the software on the Seestar. I let it gather for 20 minutes.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 22/04/2025
They both have their place. Nothing compares to seeing Saturn with your own eyeballs.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 22/04/2025
It's not. The West Coast of Canada is cloudy almost every night. But you can set up these telescope to just shoot all night, for hour+ long sessions. You could have one target one object all night if you wanted.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 22/04/2025
Finally figuring out how to operate my new Seestar S50. I did a 20 minute exposure of M51 before the clouds rolled in. Nice, it's time for a whole new hobby rabbithole.
Spiral galaxy M51
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 22/04/2025
Dunno. They thought they were supposed to open the door and leave once they landed, but Blue Origin wanted to make it a photo op? No idea.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 21/04/2025
Thanks, the response was overwhelming. I'm now living in a post ad/seo/ai slop/algorithm wonderland, following my curiosity and answering only to my patrons.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 17/04/2025
That's the right call. Be skeptical.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 22/03/2025
It's called the "tired light hypothesis" and it's made a bunch of predictions that don't match the observations.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 21/03/2025
I'm a professional. :-)
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 17/03/2025
Awww, thanks.
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 17/03/2025
Now that Universe Today is totally ad-free, we can do whatever we want. And what we want is a 5-part overview of the new science coming from JWST's Cycle 4. www.universetoday.com/articles/jws...
universetoday.com
JWST Cycle 4 Spotlight, Part 2: The Distant Universe
Earlier this week, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) announced the science objectives for the fourth cycle of the James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) General Observations program - aka. Cy...
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 16/03/2025
Everything seems to be going great. :-)
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 14/03/2025
We're doing a 4 part deep dive into all the science approved with JWST Cycle 4. Here's Part 1 www.universetoday.com/articles/sci...
universetoday.com
JWST Cycle 4 Spotlight, Part 1: Exoplanets and Habitability - Universe Today
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Fraser Cain @fcain.universetoday.com · 14/03/2025
Okay, now we're talking.
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