Dr. Kelley Hess
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khesser.bsky.social
Dr. Kelley Hess
@khesser.bsky.social
30K followers 650 following 850 posts
Astronomer/Senior Researcher at Onsala Space Observatory/Chalmers University, Sweden; ultra runner, adventure racer, cyclist. Ironman WC 2012, 2014. Xterra World Champs 2014.
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khesser.bsky.social
Dr. Kelley Hess @khesser.bsky.social · Nov 14
What’s up new followers. Welcome to Bluesky! Tonight we had another amazing sunset at the Onsala Space Observatory (note the deer 🦌 !). I often tweet about telescopes and galaxies, with some running, bikes, and legos thrown in. I reskeet cool science, women’s sports, and other stuff.
Sunset from the second floor of the Onsala admin building. Three telescopes viewed against a row of orange clouds in the horizon on the right. The sky is reflected in the ocean on the left. A zoom in of the sunset on the coast. One telescope is seen on the far right in silhouette. Against the water you can see the silhouettes of a stag and doe. The water reflects the orange sky and pink clouds. A fading sunset with a view of the telescopes from a different angle. The three radio dishes are in silhouette against the orange sky on the left, the ray dome is a little higher on the horizon against the pink sky on the right.
khesser.bsky.social
New Gear Day! Icebug shoes featuring integrated spikes with carbide tips for ice and snow. Sandsjöbacka 60 km in 2 weeks. Spent my last long run testing possible solutions to current weather outlook. Icebugs or YakTraxs on trail shoes. Both work but Icebugs win: less toe pinching and more stability.
Running shoes on a snowy bench showing one in profile and the bottom tread of the other. The knob’s in the year have small integrated spikes. Normal trail shoes secured to the outside of a running backpack. The shoes have removable “chains” on the bottom for extra grip. The chains are secured by a rubber collar that fits around the shoe.
January 4, 2026 at 2:10 PM
khesser.bsky.social
Time for a new Academic Work Tracker. Thx so much @brkeogh.bsky.social for this. It’s going to be my third year using it. Highly recommend. ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
brkeogh.bsky.social Brendan Keogh @brkeogh.bsky.social · 4d
The Academic Work Tracker spreadsheet is now updated with 2026 dates! If you don't already, 2026 is a great time to start treating your academic work like the wage job where you are paid to work a certain amount of hours that it actually is: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
Academic Work Tracker Template v2.3 (2026)
docs.google.com
January 2, 2026 at 10:33 AM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
michaelgerrard.bsky.social
The retirement of the MetroCard at midnight tonight is bittersweet for me. In 1983, as a young lawyer, I took a year's leave of absence from my law firm to serve as special counsel to Richard Ravitch, chairman of the NY MTA. He gave me the task of leading a study ...
mta.info Metropolitan Transportation Authority @mta.info · 3d
It's the final day of MetroCard sales—so as we say farewell to an icon, let's take a look at how it all started.

Thank you, MetroCard, for moving New York to the very last swipe.
January 1, 2026 at 3:33 AM
khesser.bsky.social
After several attempts, we finally bought bookshelves! Like, adult-not-ikea ones. The sales woman also confirmed our experience. It’s really hard to find much variety by way of interesting, quality bookshelves. Apparently it is a knock on effect of the popularity of audio books.
December 30, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
mariekebaan.bsky.social
Bijkomen van kerst met de fam met Pluribus. Begint meteen al goed met de VLA in New Mexico als decor 📡
December 25, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
bmacastro.bsky.social
In not-very-good news, extreme winds (114 mph gusts) on the early morning of the 25th caused significant damage to the 36" Great Refractor at Lick Observatory. Half of the main shutter broke off and landed on the main building.
December 27, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
mikamckinnon.bsky.social
Dear American academics,

UBC is part of Canada’s poaching plan for strategic research areas (including enviro, climate, water, Arctic): research.ubc.ca/federal-rese...

Applications due JAN 15, so hustle.
Canada Impact+ Research Chairs Program
The University of British Columbia is inviting expressions of interest from top-tier, internationally based researchers as
research.ubc.ca
December 30, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
zacklabe.com
Comparison of monthly temperature anomalies in the #Arctic versus the #Antarctic so far in 2025 (yellow lines). The other lines show the monthly anomalies for years from 1940 (blue) to 2024 (red). Note the long-term trends through the color gradient.

Data from @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social ERA5.
Line graph time series of monthly mean surface temperature anomalies for the Arctic region only. Every month is shown from 1940 to 2025. There is a long-term warming trend in all months of the year. Line graph time series of monthly mean surface temperature anomalies for the Antarctic region only. Every month is shown from 1940 to 2025. There is a long-term warming trend in all months of the year, but less obvious than the other regions.
December 28, 2025 at 2:27 PM
khesser.bsky.social
Merry Christmas from Tasmania! Just back from 7 days and 100 km of hiking the Overland Track from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair. We had snow ❄️ a day after mid summer in Australia! Beautiful and constantly changing landscape, and made some new friends along the way. :) 1/n
A boardwalk disappears into a field of yellow button grass moorland edged by eucalyptus trees. The rocky columns of flat topped mountains are cover with snow in the distance down to where they meet the vegetation around 1000 m elevation.
December 24, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
amandasmith.bsky.social
I know one of you has to have a billionaire’s phone number, $1m to save one of the best fossil collections in the country is a bargain. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/s...
The Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, NY is facing foreclosure by December 31st. The Paleontological Research Institution needs to raise $1 million or their collection of 7-10 million fossils — one of the largest in North America — gets scattered across the country. This includes world-renowned Burgess Shale specimens, the most complete eurypterid ever found, and the Hyde Park Mastodon. Many fossils came from sites that are now paved over and can never be collected again. The NYT just covered their fight for survival. If you've ever visited or care about preserving paleontological research, they're accepting donations of any size.
December 24, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
wtalabi.bsky.social
As the end of the year approaches here's my 2025 eligibility post for my novella "Descent" in
@clarkesworldmagazine.com:
a science-fantasy story about an expedition on a planet of sonic storms. Adventure, parental expectations and the limits of knowledge

wtalabi.wordpress.com/2025/11/21/2...
2025 Awards Eligibility (Visibility) Post
Well! Here we are once again, approaching the end of another year. Where does all the time go? Sometimes I wish I could pull a Megalopolis and “stop time” (IYKYK). But yes, as the inexo…
wtalabi.wordpress.com
November 22, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
sophielgilbert.bsky.social
Controversial take: if you cite a fake paper in your journal article, you should have to retract it.
andrew.heiss.phd Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 19d
Grading and googling hallucinated citations, as one does nowadays, and now that LLMs have been around for a while, I've discovered new horrors: hallucinated journals are now appearing in Google Scholar with dozens of citations bc so many people are citing these fake things
December 15, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
aussiastronomer.bsky.social
Hey America, turns out it IS possible to talk about gun reform immediately after a mass shooting. Australia is saddling up to do it for a second time in three decades.

(NB. Our more conservative political party was in power last time, lest you wish to blame woke left ideology for our gun laws.)
Screenshot of the Guardian article with the text "National cabinet met this afternoon and determined that “strong, decisive and focused action was needed on gun law reform” as an immediate response to the shooting."
December 15, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
marthawells.com
For today only (Dec 14) All Systems Red (1st book in The Murderbot Diaries) is on sale across all US ebook retailers for $2.99 (published by Tordotcom, edited by @leeharris.net cover art by Jaime Jones) www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/...
All Systems Red ebook by Martha Wells - Rakuten Kobo
Read "All Systems Red The Murderbot Diaries" by Martha Wells available from Rakuten Kobo. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award for Best Novella Winner of the Alex Award A New York Times and USA...
www.kobo.com
December 14, 2025 at 3:59 PM
khesser.bsky.social
Go #pidgeonsky, having a moment. Is there a wild #parrotsky? Also brush turkeys. 🤪
Rainbow lorikeet perched in a branch in a bush below a ficus tree. Color brush turkey walking through the grass. It has a black body, but with a bright yellow coffee and red head. King parrot (red front, green back) perched on a balcony railing with a palm tree in the backyard.
December 14, 2025 at 3:28 AM
khesser.bsky.social
Solid animal sighting day in Australia today: whales, laughing kookaburra, kangaroos, red-bellied black snake, echidna, white eagle, kangaroos with joey in the pouch (!), galahs, & a bandicoot! Apparently I missed a wallaby. Yesterday also wasn’t bad: flying foxes, wombat, & more elusive wallabies
Echidna from behind, burrowing in the sand between ferns in order to hide from us. A male and female kangaroo stand in a slight grass overgrown driveway. A Joey is in the females pouch, and only the ankle and foot is visible. A bandicoot looks for bugs in the grass beside an outdoor trellis for hanging laundry. It’s night and the photo has been taken with a long exposure.
December 13, 2025 at 12:17 PM
khesser.bsky.social
Three galaxies as viewed from a beach in New South Wales. Also featuring the Southern Cross on the horizon. So the vacation is going well. :D
A night sky taken with a 10 second iPhone exposure. The dust and stars of the Milky Way are visible at the bottom and extending to the right. The Large Magellanic Clouds is at the top left as a fuzzy blob, and the Small Magellanic Clouds is a fainter fuzzy blob to the right of it.
December 12, 2025 at 12:08 PM
khesser.bsky.social
Today I learned that the million+ tiles covering the Sydney opera house were made by a company in Sweden!
A close up of the one tile of a million on the Sydney opera house that has the name of the Swedish company that provided them. “Höganäs Sweden 1966” A broader view of the diamond and triangular off-white tiles that cover the shells off the opera house. There are two different style ceramic tiles. The shells are viewed from an oblique angle. The Sydney opera house viewed from a distance over the water of the harbor. The Sydney harbour bridge is in the background.
December 9, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
clancyny.bsky.social
Australia and Aotearoa, UK and various U.S. states, here are ways to get around age assurance on Bluesky.
December 8, 2025 at 3:31 AM
khesser.bsky.social
This was very cool. But also caused mild panic as the balcony door was open and what the heck were we going to do if a giant cockatoo decided it wanted breakfast.
Cockatoo walking on the railing of a balcony. Cockatoo looking curious on the railing of a balcony. Cockatoo ruffling its feathers on the railing of a balcony. Cockatoo about to take off from the railing of a balcony.
December 7, 2025 at 9:02 PM
khesser.bsky.social
Greetings Internet, from my favorite breakfast place in Perth. Hard to beat this view or the poached eggs and avo. 😎
The Perth sky line with a few skyscrapers and the tree covered bluff of Kings Park viewed across the Swan River and a gorgeous day. The blue sky is dotted with clouds. On the table in the foreground sit a cappuccino and plate of avocado, greens, and poached eggs on toast.
December 2, 2025 at 1:50 AM
khesser.bsky.social
My new Garmin watch just told me my fitness age decreased! 🎉😂😂😂
December 1, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
mtsw.bsky.social
The biggest technological revolution of our lifetime is underway and it's not AI:
josephpolitano.bsky.social Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · Nov 29
Official data is in this week, and US solar continues to grow rapidly, with generation up 30% compared to last year!
A graph of US monthly solar generation
November 29, 2025 at 12:21 AM
khesser.bsky.social
Calling friends and fellow cyclists who know Perth, Australia: can anyone recommend somewhere to rent a bike for riding around the city and commuting? Thanks in advance! 🚲
November 23, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Reposted by Dr. Kelley Hess
rincewind.run
evergreen
Tweet from @PPathole Tech enthusiasts: my entire house is smart Tech workers: the only piece of technology in my house is a printer and I keep a gun next to it so I can shoot it if it makes a noise I don’t recognize
November 22, 2025 at 5:20 PM