Andrew Kingston
@harlequindork.bsky.social
Assistant professor of humanities and literature, dark-sky conservationist, amateur photographer, birder. Researching the aesthetics of the night.
Based in Maine. Opinions my own.
andrewkingston.name
flickr.com/photos/201528723@N08
Based in Maine. Opinions my own.
andrewkingston.name
flickr.com/photos/201528723@N08
Pinned
A special autumnal equinox edition of The OLR Supplement: @hantologique.bsky.social on darkness and the night sky, from St. John of the Cross and the Tao Te Ching to Pascal, Trakl, and contemporary science and technology - What has "Enlightenment" cost us? olrsupplement.com/2025/09/22/p...
Plus de lumière: A Few Words on Darkness - The OLR Supplement
For the Autumnal Equinox, a reflection on the night sky, the stars and their disappearance in religion, poetry, philosophy, science, and technology
olrsupplement.com
I wrote a piece for the Oxford Literary Review's online supplement on the cultural significance of darkness and how our relationship to the night has changed in modern times—from theology and poetry to the Copernican Revolution and the proliferation of light pollution in the contemporary world.
Reposted by Andrew Kingston
The Crescent Nebula taken over 5 minutes in June and July. This time, I caught a hint of the Soap Bubble! The starless version shows it more clearly. Higher res version on astrobin: app.astrobin.com/i/ni99aj
#astronomy #astrophotography #space #Nebula
#astronomy #astrophotography #space #Nebula
November 7, 2025 at 8:26 PM
The Crescent Nebula taken over 5 minutes in June and July. This time, I caught a hint of the Soap Bubble! The starless version shows it more clearly. Higher res version on astrobin: app.astrobin.com/i/ni99aj
#astronomy #astrophotography #space #Nebula
#astronomy #astrophotography #space #Nebula
November 4, 2025 at 12:10 AM
October 27, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Andrew Kingston
Can I share this curious bit of Faroese art factoid. The first Faroese artist Díðrikur á Skarvanesi died in obscurity, but his illustration of Faroese breeding birds (approx 1830s) is truly unique and (mayb biased) but I think this great skua is particularly beautiful 🌍🧪
#ornithology #teamskua #art
#ornithology #teamskua #art
October 26, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Can I share this curious bit of Faroese art factoid. The first Faroese artist Díðrikur á Skarvanesi died in obscurity, but his illustration of Faroese breeding birds (approx 1830s) is truly unique and (mayb biased) but I think this great skua is particularly beautiful 🌍🧪
#ornithology #teamskua #art
#ornithology #teamskua #art
a wonderful little PBS documentary on dark skies in the @appmtnclub.bsky.social's 100-Mile Wilderness, featuring a couple of people I volunteer with at Dark Sky Maine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ybl...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ybl...
Maine’s Dark Sky | Windows to the Wild
YouTube video by New Hampshire PBS
www.youtube.com
October 26, 2025 at 6:51 PM
a wonderful little PBS documentary on dark skies in the @appmtnclub.bsky.social's 100-Mile Wilderness, featuring a couple of people I volunteer with at Dark Sky Maine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ybl...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ybl...
Loved this little Long-tailed Duck, on a solo adventure like me 🪶 #seabirds #photography
October 26, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Loved this little Long-tailed Duck, on a solo adventure like me 🪶 #seabirds #photography
This is amazing, and beautifully illustrated too. I love the genre of storytelling that focuses on the lives of individual animals.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Everyone deserves to see this beautiful piece of science communication.
🌏🧪🪶
There are many things I love about this, but I think number one is that it features the story a little known, but amazing seabird species, the Desertas Petrel.
Everyone deserves to see this beautiful piece of science communication.
🌏🧪🪶
There are many things I love about this, but I think number one is that it features the story a little known, but amazing seabird species, the Desertas Petrel.
Bird migration is changing. What does this reveal about our planet? – visualised
Bird migrations rank as one of nature’s greatest spectacles. Thanks to GPS tracking, scientists are uncovering extraordinary insights into ancient and mysterious journeys – and new threats that are re...
www.theguardian.com
October 24, 2025 at 2:47 AM
This is amazing, and beautifully illustrated too. I love the genre of storytelling that focuses on the lives of individual animals.
October 23, 2025 at 10:38 PM
I'm drowning in a sea of thinkpieces on AI, but I really liked this one, on how big databases tend to homogenize knowledge, effacing traditional and indigenous ways of thinking. Reminds me of Lyotard's ideas about how the criterion for knowledge in postmodernity becomes efficiency rather than truth.
The training data for generative AI is far from the sum total of human knowledge. As well as oral cultures, many languages are absent, creating significant blindspots in AI’s understanding of human experience
Generative AI has access to a small slice of human knowledge | Aeon Essays
Huge swathes of human knowledge are missing from the internet. By definition, generative AI is shockingly ignorant too
buff.ly
October 15, 2025 at 11:56 AM
I'm drowning in a sea of thinkpieces on AI, but I really liked this one, on how big databases tend to homogenize knowledge, effacing traditional and indigenous ways of thinking. Reminds me of Lyotard's ideas about how the criterion for knowledge in postmodernity becomes efficiency rather than truth.
October 14, 2025 at 3:44 AM
this will be my vibe all winter
Me seawatching, squinting into the eyepiece of my crappy scope with getting blasted directly in the face by a nor’easter: uhhhh there’s, like, a … gull
October 13, 2025 at 2:04 PM
this will be my vibe all winter
October 13, 2025 at 12:42 PM
The northern lights with the Pleiades
#photography
#photography
September 28, 2025 at 12:38 PM
The northern lights with the Pleiades
#photography
#photography
Reposted by Andrew Kingston
Good morning everyone. Today, in "One day, one paper", US coastal radar shows offshore bird migration is 13-20% lower and more concentrated (fewer peak nights) than terrestrial migration. These patterns enable dynamic conservation, like targeted wind turbine curtailment, to mitigate collision risk 🌎
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
September 26, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Good morning everyone. Today, in "One day, one paper", US coastal radar shows offshore bird migration is 13-20% lower and more concentrated (fewer peak nights) than terrestrial migration. These patterns enable dynamic conservation, like targeted wind turbine curtailment, to mitigate collision risk 🌎
Reposted by Andrew Kingston
Also: journalists, writers, philosophers, and others working at the nature-society interface 👇
A new feed for those working at the intersection of nature and society (ecologists, anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, urban planners, etc.). DM me to be added to the list, then use the 🏡 emoji to post to the feed!
🌎🧪
bsky.app/profile/did:...
🌎🧪
bsky.app/profile/did:...
September 25, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Also: journalists, writers, philosophers, and others working at the nature-society interface 👇
a group of vultures is called a "kettle" if it's flying, a "committee" if it's landed, and a"wake" if it's feeding.
#photography #birding
#photography #birding
September 25, 2025 at 1:20 AM
a group of vultures is called a "kettle" if it's flying, a "committee" if it's landed, and a"wake" if it's feeding.
#photography #birding
#photography #birding
I wrote a piece for the Oxford Literary Review's online supplement on the cultural significance of darkness and how our relationship to the night has changed in modern times—from theology and poetry to the Copernican Revolution and the proliferation of light pollution in the contemporary world.
A special autumnal equinox edition of The OLR Supplement: @hantologique.bsky.social on darkness and the night sky, from St. John of the Cross and the Tao Te Ching to Pascal, Trakl, and contemporary science and technology - What has "Enlightenment" cost us? olrsupplement.com/2025/09/22/p...
Plus de lumière: A Few Words on Darkness - The OLR Supplement
For the Autumnal Equinox, a reflection on the night sky, the stars and their disappearance in religion, poetry, philosophy, science, and technology
olrsupplement.com
September 24, 2025 at 1:42 PM
I wrote a piece for the Oxford Literary Review's online supplement on the cultural significance of darkness and how our relationship to the night has changed in modern times—from theology and poetry to the Copernican Revolution and the proliferation of light pollution in the contemporary world.
Sewage plumage
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘A mythical place’: how a Melbourne sewage farm became a haven for 300 species of birds
The abundance of birdlife amid the grassy plains, marshlands and 200 lagoons of the Western Treatment Plant rivals Kakadu – and is a magnet for birdwatchers
www.theguardian.com
September 22, 2025 at 1:22 AM
Sewage plumage
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
at the Common Ground Fair in Unity, ME
September 21, 2025 at 9:17 PM
at the Common Ground Fair in Unity, ME
Reposted by Andrew Kingston
From @auralflaneur.bsky.social - what can Foucault's prison activism and Derrida's anti-Apartheid advocacy tell us about lived experience testimony in the fight to abolish modern day slavery? olrsupplement.com/2025/09/19/l...
Lived Experience Testimony and Engaged Intellectuals - The OLR Supplement
Re-thinks the practice and policy surrounding lived experience testimony, drawing on Foucault and Derrida's activism
olrsupplement.com
September 19, 2025 at 2:23 PM
From @auralflaneur.bsky.social - what can Foucault's prison activism and Derrida's anti-Apartheid advocacy tell us about lived experience testimony in the fight to abolish modern day slavery? olrsupplement.com/2025/09/19/l...
September 20, 2025 at 2:18 AM
The non-profit I work with recently recognized Bowdoin College for installing DarkSky-approved lighting on their athletic fields. I hope other colleges follow suit!
#darksky #savethenight
www.ellsworthamerican.com/announcement...
#darksky #savethenight
www.ellsworthamerican.com/announcement...
Surry nonprofit presents Starry Skies Award to Bowdoin College
BRUNSWICK — Dark Sky Maine, a Surry-based nonprofit, recently gave Bowdoin College its Starry Skies Award for the responsible lighting design of its athletic fields.
www.ellsworthamerican.com
August 11, 2025 at 3:19 PM
The non-profit I work with recently recognized Bowdoin College for installing DarkSky-approved lighting on their athletic fields. I hope other colleges follow suit!
#darksky #savethenight
www.ellsworthamerican.com/announcement...
#darksky #savethenight
www.ellsworthamerican.com/announcement...