iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Well, just filled up the first paid tier of Zotero. Was hoping I’d finish the PhD before I had to upgrade 🤷‍♂️

Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Great tool I just found! This is a Zotero plugin that allows for a ArXiv added item to be checked for updated, published versions, then automatically added and merged. Handy plug in to have! 🔭 github.com/AllanChain/z...

github.com

GitHub - AllanChain/zotero-arxiv-workflow: Helper for managing arXiv papers in Zotero

Helper for managing arXiv papers in Zotero. Contribute to AllanChain/zotero-arxiv-workflow development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

In this household, we all pull our weight!

Our orange tabby cat, Luna, sitting in a chair at a laptop and keyboard. She looks unenthused, as she should for a Monday.

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

My favorite tidbit so far at the AAS: you can write an astropy table to your disk as a LaTeX formatted object and never chase ampersands in your paper again! I had no idea…🔭

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Reposted by Kyle Cook

Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Are we supposed to call our reps and tell them we don’t like when the president engages in overt war crimes, or can we trust them to get there on their own?

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

Going to be at the AAS meeting in Phoenix next week? Find me (or visit my poster on Monday) to pick up an AstroSky Ecosystem sticker! Send your friends too.

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Got a Seestar and got to play around a little bit before clouds rolled in. No extra processing other than what the Seestar does. Pretty happy with this as a starter scope that doesn’t require a ton of effort while I’m still finishing my degree. Back yard, Bortle 9 site 🔭

Pleiades 60 total integration time. Nice bright stars and picking up some of the gas around them.

Image of the Sun. Can see a couple of sunspot groups on the left side.

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Reposted by Kyle Cook

janiceleeastro @janiceleeastro.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

NASA's #habitableworldsobservatory building a #superhubble in the race to answer fundamental questions about life in the Universe, the place of humanity in the cosmos, and where explorers could dare to go next✨🧪🔭☄️ #exoplanet #extragalactic

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

For personal, “I’m way too busy right now” reasons, I chose not to present at the 3 Minute Thesis Competition this year, but I’m excited to support to incredible people I know sharing their work!

The presentation area for the University of Louisville 3 Minute Thesis finals. A screen displays a 3MT 2025 slide with 2 UofL banners in front.

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

Found a cool bookstore in Fayetteville, Arkansas that deals in out of print books. Found some couple cool books including a first printing of Einstein on the development of physics.

Spine of the book, “The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts & Relativity and Quanta” by Einstein and Infeld

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Emily has been fantastic and generous about building the Astronomy feeds and larger ecosystem. Let’s help out!

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

I have no shame admitting, I’m so happy British Baking is back!

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Excited to kick off the Habitable Worlds Observatory 2025 Meeting! If any AstroSky people at here as well I’d be happy to meet and chat! 🔭

Meeting badge: “Towards the Habitable Worlds Observatory
Kyle Cook
University of Louisville”

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

In Washington DC for the Habitable Worlds Observatory 2025 meeting. Today was an “explore day” and here’s a few highlights.

Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian Natural history museum. The blue diamond is surrounded by smaller diamonds and is resting behind glass on a rotating pedestal.

The World War 2 memorial is in the foreground with the Washington Monument in the background

Taken from the Lincoln Memorial, a stretch of water is leading to the Washington Monument.

Me with the statute of Albert Einstein outside the National Academies of Science. Einstein is large and in a seated position on stairs. I’m standing in the crook of his knee.

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

I feel like this is a good time to have discovered this quote: “People need to know that we live in a universe that is bigger than the bad things that are happening to us.” -Margaret Prescod @chanda.bsky.social

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

When your research is going so well, even your violin plots start looking like coffins 💀

3 “violins” in a violin plot that look more like coffins

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Congratulations to @astroclay.bsky.social who defended and passed his dissertation defense today! Congrats Dr!!

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Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 14/07/2025

Are we alone? To find out, NASA is building the Habitable Worlds Observatory. This powerful space telescope uses proven technologies from Hubble, #NASAWebb, and #NASARoman to look for signatures of planets that can support life—and maybe life itself: go.nasa.gov/44KCbT7 🔭 🧪

youtube.com

NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory Will Search for Life

YouTube video by NASA Goddard

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

I can’t explain how excited I am for this observatory!

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Accepting any and all recommendations on giving insulin to a diabetic dog that is ready and willing to fight like hell to avoid the shot… Tried comforting/petting, sticking while distracted/eating, etc. works once then…then she’s on to me😮‍💨

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Reposted by Kyle Cook

Sarah Kendrew @sarahkendrew.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Great article! 🔭🧪👏

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Reposted by Kyle Cook

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 19/06/2025

I suspect that fact that the vast majority of LLM users don’t seem to have received this (really very simple!) message is because the AI companies have a vested interest in us not understanding it. “ChatGPT is smart, it just makes mistakes sometimes” is much more marketable than the truth.

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Looking at old code and not sure if this is a moment I love “old me” or dislike him. Amusing though… Definitely requires clicking the picture.

Commented section of code that says “For the love of all things scientific, don’t run this. It works but is wildly inefficient.”

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

When your Monday starts by finding out the latest Mac update broken your conda environments….

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

@rafeeadnan.bsky.social is now talking at the KAAS on the internal structure of massive elliptical galaxies using strong lensing. 🔭☄️

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Next up at the KAAS Meeting is @benneholwerda.bsky.social talking anything except his normal extragalactic astronomy. Today's topic, Milky Way M-Dwarfs in CEERS. 🔭☄️

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Gary Ferland giving life advice and his journey to create the CLOUDY code at the Kentucky Area Astronomical Society Annual Meeting! 🔭☄️

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

@astroclay.bsky.social is now discussing his dissertation research on the dust properties of the overlapping galaxy pair VV 191 at the Kentucky Area Astronomical Society Meeting. 🔭☄️

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Excited to have Wes Ryle (Cincinnati Observatory) kick off the 2025 Kentucky Area Astronomical Society Annual Meeting hosted by Berea College! Looking forward to two days of regional astronomy!🔭☄️

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Happy to say Wes Ryle (Cincinnati Observatory) has officially kicked off the 2025 Kentucky Area Astronomy Society Annual Meeting! Here’s to two great days of regional astronomy! 🔭 ☄️

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

After an academic year of planning, Day 1 of the Graduate Student Regional Research Conference is complete!. A huge thanks to all our presenters, volunteers and judges to for making this event amazing!

The conference check in desk. Scotland with “thumbs up” and Allie with peace signs.

Poster presentations in progress. Leo is discussing his project with participants.

Dr. Aruni Bhatnagar delivering his keynote address on building and maintaining multidisciplinary teams.

Rafee Adnan presenting his research on strong lensing and galaxy environment.

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

It has been an honor to represent the University of Louisville at the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools 3 Minute Thesis Competition. Congratulations to the finalists!

Me standing in front my title slide with the title, “A Filter for the Universe: Using Current Data to Inform the Design of NASA’s Upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory”

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

I literally have no content in my dissertation document yet. Title page, chapter titles and such only. It’s already 19 pages 🤣

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

The thing that Target seems to not get is they promised to be an ally. They said they were there to support black people and businesses, they would support LGBTQIA+ communities. Yet the second the political climate turned they dropped us. Nothing hurts like a broken promise.

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Reposted by Kyle Cook

K.B. Spangler @kbspangler.com · 05/03/2025

One of the officers active on Jan 6 makes a good point here:

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

This Cheeto really wants me to believe there are people older than social security in the social security database… Never since such an obvious made up string of numbers thrown out.

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Reposted by Kyle Cook

Emily Hunt @emily.space · 03/03/2025

The new #AstroSci feed has been a while in the making, and I am SO excited for it! ☄️ The main Astronomy feed is great to get a 'firehose' of space content, but it's too much if you're a professional astronomer who just wants to keep up with colleagues. AstroSci is a new feed just for science!

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Happy Black History Month! To all the black people who have helped make the US what it is despite the struggles and injustices you have suffered, I see you and I thank you. 1/9

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Here’s what really bothers me with the anti-DEI attacks. Even with them in place, women and minority groups are underrepresented in the workplace, and that’s without any discussion on gaps in pay. It was far far worse before these initiatives went into place. 1/5

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

How come every time a new semester starts, I get something fun like bronchitis?

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Yikes! It’s not just trees burning y’all.

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Reposted by Kyle Cook

Anshuman Acharya @anshumanastro.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Found an old meme of mine from Twitter, and realised that the alt text was a little Easter egg of its own. Proud of past me for this!

Old dude in flamboyant clothing represents my plots in the paper which were made ages ago. Tiger Woods dressed in black and white represents the text in my paper that seems to worsen with each iteration. Two golf balls near the flamboyant old dude are labelled as "underfull hbox" and "overfull hbox". Why are they labelled so? Nobody knows. It's a mystery of LaTeX that scientists have just accepted as a part of life.

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

The LADUMA team has put out a new paper on the neutral hydrogen mass function in the local Universe (HIMF)! Neutral Hydrogen (HI) is the mid step in the evolution of hydrogen in galaxies. 1/3 🔭 #extragalactic arxiv.org/pdf/2412.11426

arxiv.org

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Glad to participate (online) in the first WAVES Team Meeting! Excited to learn more about 4MOST and WAVES and find how I can contribute effectively. The 12 hour time difference means I’ll have to catch some talks on recording!🔭

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

I asked my sister (mother of 4) for help testing a web form I am working on for our Graduate Student Regional Research Conference. Her test responses did not disappoint! She’s ok, I promise.

My sister’s responses to Presention Title and Abstract.
Title: “Help me, I’m Drowning in Life”
Abstract: “Abstract for sure. Messy. Chaotic. Screaming for attention.”

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

The “best” part of research is being mad at the past you for not making things easy on present you…

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Kyle Cook @kwcookastro.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Ok random dog pic. Our girl is just too cute sometimes

Our Dachsund Daisy asleep under her dog print blanket.

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