Alec MacKinnon
@alecmackinnon.bsky.social
Solar physicist, adult educator, human. Scottish. Retired; hopefully not yet moribund. Prog, jazz and indeed, surprising though it might be to the younger me, folk. Cycling
Pinned
here's a picture I made. Simulated tracks of 25 electrons passing through a gas (like air), each with its unique history of scattering off the gas atoms. Based on ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991A%26..., work done for #solarflare purposes. The colours are random to make a pretty picture
Didn't click "like" on this
a new genre of photo in the last year is federal agents working for ICE pointing guns directly at photographers
November 11, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Didn't click "like" on this
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
The first surviving successful image of Jupiter was taken in 1879 by Andrew Ainslie Common in Ealing, London, using his 36-inch Newtonian reflector and the wet collodion process invented in 1851 by portrait photographer Frederick Scott Archer
November 10, 2025 at 8:24 AM
The first surviving successful image of Jupiter was taken in 1879 by Andrew Ainslie Common in Ealing, London, using his 36-inch Newtonian reflector and the wet collodion process invented in 1851 by portrait photographer Frederick Scott Archer
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Maybe Keir should demand the heads of major US news networks any time they imply Britain is on the brink of civil war or that we live under sharia law. Or does it not work both ways?
November 10, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Maybe Keir should demand the heads of major US news networks any time they imply Britain is on the brink of civil war or that we live under sharia law. Or does it not work both ways?
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
🚨 AR4274 just fired off another X-class flare! ⚡
CME confirmed, main bulk doesn't appear Earth-directed, though it's difficult to determine atm. If AR4274 keeps this up... are we heading for a situation similar to May 2024? Keep watching 👀
#SpaceWeather #StephsStormWatch
CME confirmed, main bulk doesn't appear Earth-directed, though it's difficult to determine atm. If AR4274 keeps this up... are we heading for a situation similar to May 2024? Keep watching 👀
#SpaceWeather #StephsStormWatch
November 10, 2025 at 11:25 AM
🚨 AR4274 just fired off another X-class flare! ⚡
CME confirmed, main bulk doesn't appear Earth-directed, though it's difficult to determine atm. If AR4274 keeps this up... are we heading for a situation similar to May 2024? Keep watching 👀
#SpaceWeather #StephsStormWatch
CME confirmed, main bulk doesn't appear Earth-directed, though it's difficult to determine atm. If AR4274 keeps this up... are we heading for a situation similar to May 2024? Keep watching 👀
#SpaceWeather #StephsStormWatch
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
The NASA Technical Report Server is not being updated due to funding cuts. This is a disaster. 🧪 🔭
November 10, 2025 at 4:38 AM
The NASA Technical Report Server is not being updated due to funding cuts. This is a disaster. 🧪 🔭
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Written before the BBC resignations but this by @arusbridger.bsky.social is really worth reading. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...
The BBC has bigger impartiality problems than its coverage of Trump
It is the BBC’s entire governance structure–rather than individual stories–that should cause most concern
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Written before the BBC resignations but this by @arusbridger.bsky.social is really worth reading. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Autumn colours in Pollok Park, Glasgow last Saturday. Think the trees will be barer already. #photography #autumn #glasgow
November 8, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Autumn colours in Pollok Park, Glasgow last Saturday. Think the trees will be barer already. #photography #autumn #glasgow
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Today in 1957 in the Pacific Ocean, 2 miles south of Christmas Island (Kiritimati)w, the United Kingdom conducted Round C (Operation Grapple X), its first successful H-bomb test. A Valiant bomber dropped an experimental device which exploded at an altitude of ~7,382 feet. The yield was 1.8 Megatons.
November 8, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Today in 1957 in the Pacific Ocean, 2 miles south of Christmas Island (Kiritimati)w, the United Kingdom conducted Round C (Operation Grapple X), its first successful H-bomb test. A Valiant bomber dropped an experimental device which exploded at an altitude of ~7,382 feet. The yield was 1.8 Megatons.
Autumn colours in Pollok Park, Glasgow last Saturday. Think the trees will be barer already. #photography #autumn #glasgow
November 8, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Autumn colours in Pollok Park, Glasgow last Saturday. Think the trees will be barer already. #photography #autumn #glasgow
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
If you believe either that Franklin discovered the double helix, and / or Watson and Crick stole her data, ask yourself how you know this. Then take a read of this article.
If I see one more stupid Rosalind Franklin take I'm going to lose my mind. Thank god for @matthewcobb.bsky.social and @nccomfort.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure
Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article, both written in 1953, reveal that she was an equal player.
www.nature.com
November 8, 2025 at 7:32 AM
If you believe either that Franklin discovered the double helix, and / or Watson and Crick stole her data, ask yourself how you know this. Then take a read of this article.
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Attention UK astronomers and space scientists! 🪐🔭
Want to help shape global policy and direction within the astronomy community? Why not join the International Astronomical Union.
Find out more on how to do so free of charge at: ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...
Want to help shape global policy and direction within the astronomy community? Why not join the International Astronomical Union.
Find out more on how to do so free of charge at: ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...
November 7, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Attention UK astronomers and space scientists! 🪐🔭
Want to help shape global policy and direction within the astronomy community? Why not join the International Astronomical Union.
Find out more on how to do so free of charge at: ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...
Want to help shape global policy and direction within the astronomy community? Why not join the International Astronomical Union.
Find out more on how to do so free of charge at: ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
The Proba-3/ASPIICS paper just dropped on ArXiV! If you like heliophysics, the corona, or cool mission concepts, give it a read. ASPIICS is a coronagraph comprising two spacecraft in formation: a camera and a separate occulter. They're producing amazing images. ☀️🛰️🔭🚀 arxiv.org/abs/2511.01679
November 7, 2025 at 5:42 AM
The Proba-3/ASPIICS paper just dropped on ArXiV! If you like heliophysics, the corona, or cool mission concepts, give it a read. ASPIICS is a coronagraph comprising two spacecraft in formation: a camera and a separate occulter. They're producing amazing images. ☀️🛰️🔭🚀 arxiv.org/abs/2511.01679
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Does the solar magnetic field migrate towards the poles faster than expected? Results using the data from #ESA ’s #SolarOrbiter are published today in #ApJL. More infos here: www.mps.mpg.de/sun-first-gl...
@science.esa.int @ioppublishing.bsky.social
@science.esa.int @ioppublishing.bsky.social
Sun: First Glimpse of Polar Magnetic Field in Motion
In March, ESA's spacecraft Solar Orbiter had its first clear view of the Sun’s south pole. A first analysis has now been published.
Huge cells of hot plasma cover the Sun and create the large-scale, ...
www.mps.mpg.de
November 5, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Does the solar magnetic field migrate towards the poles faster than expected? Results using the data from #ESA ’s #SolarOrbiter are published today in #ApJL. More infos here: www.mps.mpg.de/sun-first-gl...
@science.esa.int @ioppublishing.bsky.social
@science.esa.int @ioppublishing.bsky.social
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
It’s 6 November, and you know what that means, don’t you? YES, THAT’S RIGHT. It’s the 156th anniversary of the death of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s pet wombat
November 6, 2025 at 9:35 AM
It’s 6 November, and you know what that means, don’t you? YES, THAT’S RIGHT. It’s the 156th anniversary of the death of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s pet wombat
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
“Tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded NASA property and laboratories are at risk of either being discarded, mishandled, or out-of-commission for significant time periods.” 🔭🧪
www.gesta-goddard.org/blog/gestas-...
www.gesta-goddard.org/blog/gestas-...
GESTA’s Summary of Goddard Building Closures Status
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is the largest group of scientists, technicians and engineers in the US who develop Earth and space science flight missions. Below is GESTA's understanding of the...
www.gesta-goddard.org
November 6, 2025 at 2:50 AM
“Tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded NASA property and laboratories are at risk of either being discarded, mishandled, or out-of-commission for significant time periods.” 🔭🧪
www.gesta-goddard.org/blog/gestas-...
www.gesta-goddard.org/blog/gestas-...
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Words of Advice from William S #Burroughs and indeed Material (Bill Laswell) youtu.be/iIB1-EeuZHI?...
Words Of Advice - Material featuring Williams Burroughs
YouTube video by marc higgins
youtu.be
October 9, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Words of Advice from William S #Burroughs and indeed Material (Bill Laswell) youtu.be/iIB1-EeuZHI?...
And people say neoliberalism is dead
This policy is so profoundly ignorant of the rich art of teaching that it can only have been dreamt up by someone who's used to maximising the sale of knickers.
bsky.app/profile/ruth...
bsky.app/profile/ruth...
This policy (probably dreamed up my a management consultant for Starbucks) does not avoid a “single point of failure”. There is no guarantee that someone can cover someone else’s sickness absence simply because they teach on the same module because …. expertise is needed to teach 2/
November 6, 2025 at 8:27 AM
And people say neoliberalism is dead
A walk and a beer
November 5, 2025 at 7:16 PM
A walk and a beer
corporations are composed of humans but are not human. The reality they respect and respond to is not ours. They are INCAPABLE of understanding the harms of pollution, exploitation, climate change. The most important function of government now is to curtail their natural tendencies.
We are being eaten alive by rapacious private firms.
Government continue to feed us like meat to them when one of the prime jobs of governments should be to protect people from exploitation.
Government continue to feed us like meat to them when one of the prime jobs of governments should be to protect people from exploitation.
In our increasingly monetised country more & more public money goes to support private profit - benefits going to pay private rents, benefits supporting workers who are not paid decent wages by employers, taxpayers’ money going to support privatise firms in NHS and to subsidise private train firms…
November 4, 2025 at 10:36 AM
corporations are composed of humans but are not human. The reality they respect and respond to is not ours. They are INCAPABLE of understanding the harms of pollution, exploitation, climate change. The most important function of government now is to curtail their natural tendencies.
November 3, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
A purported ally threatening diplomats and their families with personal consequences if they maintain the positions they’ve been instructed to take is very deeply shocking, extremely hostile, and undermines the norms by which non-violent resolution of international disagreements are possible.
November 3, 2025 at 12:20 PM
A purported ally threatening diplomats and their families with personal consequences if they maintain the positions they’ve been instructed to take is very deeply shocking, extremely hostile, and undermines the norms by which non-violent resolution of international disagreements are possible.
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
November 3, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
A friend told me that her American dad got in touch to talk about some news he'd seen on Facebook: there are riots in England over DEI, and the King dramatically burst into parliament to tell Starmer off, and then Prince William did the same to Sadiq Khan. AI really is inventing bold new universes
November 3, 2025 at 7:21 AM
A friend told me that her American dad got in touch to talk about some news he'd seen on Facebook: there are riots in England over DEI, and the King dramatically burst into parliament to tell Starmer off, and then Prince William did the same to Sadiq Khan. AI really is inventing bold new universes
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Reposted by Alec MacKinnon
Celestial Globe, Caspar Hersbach, 1618 The comet shown here at bottom was a large one, visible across Europe from Nov 1618 to the end of Jan 1619. (British Museum)
Two other comets were also observed in 1618.
Two other comets were also observed in 1618.
November 2, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Celestial Globe, Caspar Hersbach, 1618 The comet shown here at bottom was a large one, visible across Europe from Nov 1618 to the end of Jan 1619. (British Museum)
Two other comets were also observed in 1618.
Two other comets were also observed in 1618.