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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 6h

Public holidays are for just sitting in the park with your dog and casually staring out at the world. Felt guilty about not doing PhD work …. for about 10 seconds, then realised, nope, this is the better thing to do today.

My dog sitting between my legs at the park as he looks out across the harbour towards the city off in the distance

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 03/10/2026

A couple of Galahs giving me some side eye action on this morning’s walk. The show pony of birds.

A Galah, giving side eye, perched in a tree

A Galah being cautious as it looks at me

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 03/10/2026

And just like that, the wall of storms roll out to sea and leave some really excellent sky colours in its wake.

Sunset light catching on the bottom of storm
Clouds as they roll past

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 03/10/2026

We’re now a river front property apparently. It’s higher than the kerb!

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 03/10/2026

Some dodgy timelapse as the front rolled past. Been a while since we had a thundery storm — enjoying it, though my little mate is a little freaked by it.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 03/10/2026

The nephew and I had a fun time doing twirls, burn outs and getting dizzy. Yes, I’m a 46 year old adult. And????

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 03/10/2026

Another adventure out to Mother’s house! His fav adventure of them all because she’s also one of the people that gives him lots of tasty food when we are not watching and he knows / remembers this.

Small white dog looking back from the front seat to the back seat

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 02/10/2026

And that includes #RadioAstronomy tech that has come and gone .... like the old Mills Cross antenna, like Molonglo and some of the old dish antennas that now reside where I work 📸 B. Pedersen / TROVE / UTMOST / me

Aerial shot in black and white of a cross structure in a large paddock

Photo taken from below the north-south arm of the Molonglo telescope, showing gears and metal bars which make up the telescope

Long, half-cylinder view of the Molonglo telescope, stretching off into distance.

A radio antenna pointing upwards toward the sun in the middle Of a field. The image is black and white

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 02/10/2026

Today, we have so many fantastic #RadioAstronomy observatories and telescopes -- Australia is a world-leader in this field, pioneering tech exported everywhere else. And of course, we're building one half of the biggest radio telescopes EVER in WA ... the SKA! 📸 Me / CSIRO / M. Goh/ICRAR/Curtin

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 02/10/2026

Some of the first observations of radio sources in the sky, like the Crab Pulsar, Cygnus A, Cent A, and Sgr A*, were made from these stations. At that point, they didn't know what their source (e.g. pulsars, supermassive black holes, etc.) was. 📸 CSIRO

Black and white image of a man standing in front of a dish antenna dug into the ground

Four plots showing radio sources in the sky from four objects

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 02/10/2026

Collaroy Plateau station was the first, but many radio astronomy observatories started popping up after this. The other one, not far from my place, is Dover Heights station, where these early pioneers of radio astronomy in Australia also started observing other objects too. I took my dog there!

Nine tile image showing several photos. In the centre a man, holding a dog and pointing through a fence. A few photos are of an old antenna sitting on a cliff face. Remaining photos are shots of a information board showing historical info about radio astronomy at this site.

An old, rusty antenna on a cliff face with the ocean in the background

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 02/10/2026

Pawsey, along with Ruby Payne-Scott and Lindsay McCready took the observations and compared them with solar observations made at Mount Stromlo Observatory (Canberra), finding radio emissions correlated with Sunspots. Findings were published in Nature www.nature.com/articles/157... 📸 CSIRO

Nature article opening:

Radio-Frequency Energy from the Sun
RADIO-FREQUENOY radiation in the ten-metre range
of wave-lengths which appeared to originate in the
region of the Milky Way was reported by Jansky1 in
1933. He observed no measurable effect from the sun,
despite the fact that its thermal radiation immensely
exceeds the total from all other stars, and deduced
that this 'cosmic static' originated in interstellar
space. Later observers, Reber2 (2 metres), English
Army observers3 (5 metres) and Royal New Zealand
Air Force radar personnel' (1·5 metres), have since
reported small or large effects from the sun itself.
On October 3, 1945, this Laboratory initiated a
series of observations on 1 ·5 metres from a 400-ft.
hill overlooking the sea near Sydney. The equipment
consisted of an array of forty half-wave dipoles
with a plane reflector, connected to a receiver having
a noise factor of 9 decibels and fitted with a square
law output meter. Since the aerial rotated about a
vertical axis, we could only direct it to the sun near
sunrise and sunset.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 02/10/2026

At sunrise on 3 Oct 1945 on the Collaroy Plateau, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) radar operators, on instruction from Dr Joseph Pawsey, used the 200 MHz radar to capture the first radio-frequency detection of the Sun and the first Australian radio astronomy observation. 📸 D & J Thorncraft / RAAF

Old photo of a radar station with a short building next to a more narrow taller building that has a radar atop of it

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 02/10/2026

Today is the 81st anniversary of the birth of #RadioAstronomy in Australia! 📡 It grew out of radar tech built here in Sydney during WWII. As the war ended, military activity shifted to research, investigating the strange 'noise' and 'interference' coming from the Sun. 📸 J. Messer/NSW G.R.

Coer of a magazine from the late 1940s showing an illustration of a radar station on top of a hill. The title reads: SECRET - Directorate of Radar Services R.A.A.F. Radar Station Portable Type - LW Station

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 02/10/2026

There’s a bit of Praying Mantis talk about, and tbh, I still think about that Buffy episode. I haven’t seen one in a while, but I once saw a video of a Praying Mantis catching and killing a Hummingbird! WTF! Anyway, I had a Stick Insect swaying in my garden yesterday. Much more friendly!

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 01/10/2026

Will end with this little nugget that made me LOL. This again demonstrates the overreliance on SpaceX launch as the backbone for a lot of these things. Maybe the slower-than-expected progress of Starship might work in our favour, giving us time to organise and cause good trouble. /end

What will it take to do that? Based on the amount of payload launched by the Falcon 9, they think a similar cost-reduction trajectory will require Starship to fly 370,000 tons of payload into orbit. That’s something that would take it about 1,800 launches over the next 10 years, or 180 a year — and that’s if it can fly 200 metric tons on each mission.

That’s a big ask for a vehicle that has never flown more than five times in a year. SpaceX predicts the company will be flying far more than that — Elon Musk has suggested Starship could achieve an hourly flight rate in 2029, for example, but Musk says a lot of things.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 01/10/2026

Starship, after 14 attempts, only just achieved "engineering success" and reached orbit a few days ago. For critical technology that underpins ALL of SpaceX's grand (and frankly, lolzy) plans, the market did not jump with joy or excitement about this. Risk/reward likely already priced in.

SpaceX share price showing history of share value over time. It has now plato'd to around $150 per share and did not react positvely to the positive news of Starship success.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 01/10/2026

It’s super shitty behaviour, so I had to yell at him and lightly tap his nose to let him know he did something bad. And now he is being very timid and it’s making me feel super guilty!

A small white dog inside his cosy bed. He is looking sad.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 01/10/2026

Thanks to @brewcitychaser.com for pointing to the data and clarifying what has been confusing me ... but the only real 'drop' part was a sudden decrease of about 2.1 km in altitude (still scary!). The rest is a bit more gradual. Here I've plotted the FlightRadar data surrounding the rapid descent.

Plot showing flight altitude of an aircraft that suddenly changed over the course of several seconds. The aircraft suddenly drops. Time in seconds on x-axis and altitude on y-axis in feet. An arrow is annotated to indicate the sudden drop.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 01/10/2026

Ok, so it is linear, but you can't see the short time intervals. I plotted it here. The time intervals are in seconds, so this is about 20 seconds. It looks like there's a ~2.1 km drop in one second, but the rest is more gradual.

Plot showing aircraft altitude as function of time with a declining gradient. At one point the aircract suddenly drops for one second.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 01/10/2026

👀👀👀 New image from SKA-Low! This is of a Long-Period Transient (a phenomenon we don't fully understand as yet) and was imaged using 14 stations (3,584 antennas) located in Western Australia Top plot is not dispersed (affected by 'stuff' between stars). That profile 🤩 📸 SKAO 🔭📡 #RadioAstronomy

two tile images stacked vertically. Top image shows pink curves sweeping from top left to bottom right. Bottom image shows vertical curves. This is the pulse of the long period transient which is non-dispersed (top) and dispersed (bottom).

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 01/10/2026

Far out! Is this actually what happened? I'm confused! How are more people NOT injured? This is like a vomit comet trajectory; it would cause everything to go weightless for 2 minutes, right? I don't understand how the aircraft falls ~50%, suddenly rises, then falls again before stabilising.

Plot showing aircraft altitude over time. After reaching cruising altitude the curve vertically drops 50%, has a sharp rise then further drop in a very short amount of time, before stabilising and decsending.

"The flight tracking website Flightradar24 recorded the aircraft abruptly descending from its cruising altitude of about 34,000ft to 17,000ft in less than two minutes. Investigators will look at whether such a sudden and ferocious movement was the reason for damage to the aircraft’s rudder."

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 01/10/2026

This morning #BalmainMax and me went to our local community-contributed library on our walk to donate some books. Dropped off several text books which I now have electronic copies off — hopefully some students pick them up! He loves going in here. Little nerd. 🤓

A small dog in a local community library, surrounded by books.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 30/09/2026

Sarah Paulson as the serial killer Aileen Wuornos in the latest Monster anthology series: The Lizzie Borden Story is <chef’s kiss>. The make-up department did soooo good with this. And Paulson slips perfectly into the madness. Just as good as Charlize Theron’s portrayal a few years back IMO!

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 30/09/2026

This is actually a really fascinating find too! 35 years after the discovery of the pulsar PSR J1748−2446A (the fastest-spinning pulsar) in Terzan 5, this paper reports the first non-radio signal from the binary companion, modulated by the orbital period!

Three tile image showing the light curve of a companion of a pulsar in the globular cluster

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 30/09/2026

Another really friggen cool JWST study! (pre-print) JWST stared at two Globular Clusters (Terzan 5 and Liller 1) and spotted / measured over 1000 variable stars. That tiny square has all these stars in it! And their light curves are extremely cute too! arxiv.org/abs/2609.35959 🔭

Six-tile image showing two globular clusters (per row). The first column shows the previous telescope image of each cluster. Next two columns show same clusters viewed by JWST with an inset revealing a lot of new stars in a tiny patch.

many small tiles showing the light curves of variable stars

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 30/09/2026

Yeah, um, I think the words I am looking for here are "JFC" This is what Sydney's skies would look like tonight under these conditions.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 29/09/2026

This is Cherrio (an excellent name!) who we just met. Basically, a large, husky-like fox. 🦊 Cheerio is named cheerio as he is full of cheer! #DogsOfBalmain

A golden brown dog that looks like a large fox

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 28/09/2026

He's not perfect, but it's refreshing to hear a world leader speaking like this.

If I look at my own social media, the hatred has risen dramatically. And I think a lot of people feel, ‘This is not my fight. I’m not Black. I’m not a Muslim. I’m not a woman. I’m not a trans person. There is something going on, but it’s not hurting me or affecting me directly; it’s OK to look away.’ But people should realise that attacks on trans people are just the first step. The second is to attack basic rights for women. And the next is to attack basic rights for gay people. And the next is to attack basic rights for Black people. This is an agenda that we should stop and we should fight back.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 28/09/2026

MOTHER! After nearly five decades, Madonna still got it -- fun performance at VMAs, winning awards, great album! That's actress Julia Garner (Ozark, Inventing Anna, Weapons) sitting her right here, looking like 80s "Express Yourself" Madonna. Garner is set to play the singer in an upcoming biopic

madonna sitting with several dancers and actors on the set of the VMAs today

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 27/09/2026

I have the code. (My sister just sent me this, it’s some sort of screen-free kid game that teaches them about binary numbers and switches or something)

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 27/09/2026

Outside of the medical benefit cases, I can see ZERO good scenarios this tech brings. None. Lobby your local councils to make sure these are banned from any public spaces. We now have this in our area. We can still control the outcome of this crap. www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/news/inner-w...

Inner West Council to ban AI Smart Glasses in public facilities

Inner West Council will ban AI smart glasses and other wearable recording devices in its venues and facilities, including pools, change rooms, childcare centres and public toilets.

Council resolved at its meeting on Tuesday night to prohibit the devices and has asked staff to report back on how the ban will be implemented, including conditions of entry and signage requirements.

Exemptions will be provided to people who rely on the technology as accessibility devices.

The move follows similar action by a growing number of councils, including the City of Sydney and Randwick Council, to address the privacy risks posed by AI-powered devices.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 26/09/2026

This is great! Kylie was an excellent choice for this.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 26/09/2026

This might be niche for all but 0.1% of you. If that. But if you fall in that 0.1% and have also seen this alternate dimension, then you know. You absolutely know. Sven is a real person. 📸 GQ Magazine

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 25/09/2026

Oh man, the light is soooo good rn If that sunset continues without the Sun going behind any other clouds, it’s gonna light up the bottom of that dark cloud nicely ….

Looking out across a field as the sun emerges through the bottom of a dark cloud

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 25/09/2026

There’s a nice storm rolling our way from the west. Can hear distant rumbles of thunder. Afternoon storms are so good! To the east, an almost full Moon rises ….

Looking out at the harbour where two ferries are docked. Behind them a storm is starting to roll in.

A large, almost full moon rises over tree tops

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 25/09/2026

Always love seeing them around. Reminds me that there is science everywhere! Little rainbows just casually dropping in. Also ….. light is gay. That’s how the Universe intended it to be. 🏳️‍🌈

Spectrum on a textured wall. Annotated is the different bands and wavelengths of light.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 25/09/2026

Our house is just a few degrees off N-S alignment and so, this time of year, the Sun rises nearly exactly to our right and sets nearly exactly to our left. Because of the skylights, glass panels and windows, this means that this time of year, we get lots of spectra projected across interior walls!

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 24/09/2026

Today I learned that people make food choices based on masculinity, and even though it's: - probably better for their health - better for the environment - reduces impact on animal cruelty - there are starving people in the world ... their sexism-brain might dominate these choices.

More recently, scientists have noticed that these dietary choices are linked to broader beliefs about social dominance. A 2020 study provided empirical evidence that hostile sexist attitudes are strongly tied to the belief that humans should dominate animals and the natural world. Hostile sexism involves negative evaluations of women and femininity, along with the belief that women are inferior to men.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 24/09/2026

I am closely watching how this Australian case study unfolds over next few weeks. The act itself breaches our laws (the Criminal Code Act 1995, sections 477-478). However, it strictly refers to a "person". Suspect any defence will argue that the AI Agent did its own thing and is not a 'person'

Division 477—Serious computer offences

477.1 Unauthorised access, modification or impairment with intent to commit a serious offence

Intention to commit a serious Commonwealth, State or Territory offence

(1) A person commits an offence if:

(a) the person causes:

(i) any unauthorised access to data held in a computer; or

(ii) any unauthorised modification of data held in a computer; or

(iii) any unauthorised impairment of electronic communication to or from a computer; and

(c) the person knows the access, modification or impairment is unauthorised; and

(d) the person intends to commit, or facilitate the commission of, a serious offence against a law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory (whether by that person or another person) by the access, modification or impairment.

(3) In a prosecution for an offence against subsection (1), it is not necessary to prove that the defendant knew that the offence was:

(a) an offence against a law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory; or

(b) a serious offence.

Penalty

(6) A person who commits an offence against this section is punishable, on conviction, by a penalty not exceeding the penalty applicable to the serious offence.

Impossibility

(7) A person may be found guilty of an offence against this section even if committing the serious offence is impossible.

No offence of attempt

(8) It is not an offence to attempt to commit an offence against this section.

Meaning of serious offence

(9) In this section:

serious offence means an offence that is punishable by imprisonment for life or a period of 5 or more years.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 24/09/2026

HEO have a fresh new pic of the Chinese Space Station (TIANHE-1) captured from above! This resolution here is 12cm / pixel 🤯🤯🤯

Satellite image of a space station taken from above showing solar panels and modules of station

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 24/09/2026

The Father of Disco absolutely set the look for 'the Father of Disco'. But seriously, the legacy and impact on music by this human .... massive is an understatement. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio... 📸 Casablanca Records (1979)

Black and white image of Giorgio Moroder with his thick moustache.

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 24/09/2026

Come work in our department! Lots of cool research projects across many fields (optical, radio, instruments, quantum, stats, etc.) and our campus is *really nice*!

Four tile image of trees which have turned brown and golden in autumn

Looking out across several bushes and trees on a fire of grass and some buildings in the distance.

Two tile image. On the left is a set of stairs which have the progress pride flag painted on them. On the right are flag poles at the University campus showing progress pride flags.

Lookimg up a pathway that is lined with large towering trees. The sun is shining through them casing interesting shadows

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