Philip Muirhead
@philipmuirhead.bsky.social
Astronomer at Boston University. Director of the Perkins Telescope Observatory.
Ugh these announcers. Less is more fellas. Never thought I’d say this, but I miss Joe Buck. I miss Vin Scully even more.
October 30, 2025 at 1:17 AM
Ugh these announcers. Less is more fellas. Never thought I’d say this, but I miss Joe Buck. I miss Vin Scully even more.
Reposted by Philip Muirhead
Brief life update: On Monday I resigned from my appointment at Lowell Observatory. I wish my remaining friends and colleagues the best of luckin their endeavors in increasing new visitor center visitation, and continuing to pursue world-class research in the face of having ended tenure today.
October 10, 2025 at 1:53 AM
Brief life update: On Monday I resigned from my appointment at Lowell Observatory. I wish my remaining friends and colleagues the best of luckin their endeavors in increasing new visitor center visitation, and continuing to pursue world-class research in the face of having ended tenure today.
Congratulations to Dr. Allison McCarthy, who successfully defended her PhD “The Physical Basis for L and T Dwarf Variability” on Friday! Allie is now off to Trinity College Dublin for a postdoc with the ExoAimsir group led by Prof. Johanna Vos! 🪐🔭 @alliemccarthy.bsky.social @johannavos.bsky.social
July 20, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Congratulations to Dr. Allison McCarthy, who successfully defended her PhD “The Physical Basis for L and T Dwarf Variability” on Friday! Allie is now off to Trinity College Dublin for a postdoc with the ExoAimsir group led by Prof. Johanna Vos! 🪐🔭 @alliemccarthy.bsky.social @johannavos.bsky.social
Reposted by Philip Muirhead
Four charts showing the extent of cuts to NASA in the FY26 budget:
- Cuts to every science division
- Smallest science funding since 1984
- 19 active, inflight missions cancelled
- Smallest NASA budget since FY 1961
- Cuts to every science division
- Smallest science funding since 1984
- 19 active, inflight missions cancelled
- Smallest NASA budget since FY 1961
May 31, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Four charts showing the extent of cuts to NASA in the FY26 budget:
- Cuts to every science division
- Smallest science funding since 1984
- 19 active, inflight missions cancelled
- Smallest NASA budget since FY 1961
- Cuts to every science division
- Smallest science funding since 1984
- 19 active, inflight missions cancelled
- Smallest NASA budget since FY 1961
Congrats to my colleague Merav Opher on winning a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship! And congrats to BU for tying with Princeton for the most Guggenheim fellows this year (6)!
April 17, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Congrats to my colleague Merav Opher on winning a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship! And congrats to BU for tying with Princeton for the most Guggenheim fellows this year (6)!
Thank you to our Perkins-Telescope-partner North Carolina A&T @ncatsuaggies.bsky.social for hosting me for their Physics Colloquium this week! I had a wonderful time meeting with their undergrads, grad students, and faculty, and talking about small stars, brown dwarfs and exoplanets!
March 28, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Thank you to our Perkins-Telescope-partner North Carolina A&T @ncatsuaggies.bsky.social for hosting me for their Physics Colloquium this week! I had a wonderful time meeting with their undergrads, grad students, and faculty, and talking about small stars, brown dwarfs and exoplanets!
Reposted by Philip Muirhead
Check out our newest results from JWST, led by @alliemccarthy.bsky.social and published today in ApJ Letters! 🔭🪐
Astronomers using #NASAWebb have captured thousands of infrared spectra, revealing evidence for patchy clouds layers, high-altitude hot spots, and variations in chemistry around a swiftly spinning, free-floating object 20 light-years from Earth: webbtelescope.pub/4hVeLjt 🔭 🧪
March 3, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Check out our newest results from JWST, led by @alliemccarthy.bsky.social and published today in ApJ Letters! 🔭🪐
Reposted by Philip Muirhead
Check out the press release for our recent work using JWST observations of SIMP0136! Also published today on ApJL: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...
March 3, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Check out the press release for our recent work using JWST observations of SIMP0136! Also published today on ApJL: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...
Excited to share this press release of our investigation into the atmosphere of a "rogue planet"!
Astronomers using #NASAWebb have captured thousands of infrared spectra, revealing evidence for patchy clouds layers, high-altitude hot spots, and variations in chemistry around a swiftly spinning, free-floating object 20 light-years from Earth: webbtelescope.pub/4hVeLjt 🔭 🧪
March 3, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Excited to share this press release of our investigation into the atmosphere of a "rogue planet"!
Recently forwarded an article by @griffithobserv.bsky.social about the unknown telescope in Hugo Ballin's mural in their rotunda. Turns out it's BU's own Perkins Telescope! A "modern telescope" that we still think is pretty modern 😇 griffithobservatory.org/exhibits/w-m...
Hugo Ballin Murals - Griffith Observatory - Southern California’s gateway to the cosmos!
On the vaulted ceiling and upper walls of the W. M. Keck Foundation Central Rotunda are Griffith Observatory's greatest artistic treasure: the Hugo Ballin Murals. Workers have carefully and completely...
griffithobservatory.org
January 30, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Recently forwarded an article by @griffithobserv.bsky.social about the unknown telescope in Hugo Ballin's mural in their rotunda. Turns out it's BU's own Perkins Telescope! A "modern telescope" that we still think is pretty modern 😇 griffithobservatory.org/exhibits/w-m...
In Lewis Lapham’s last Notebook for Harper’s, he wrote that reading history “lessons our fears of what might happen tomorrow.” Wow, was he wrong about that.
January 21, 2025 at 1:18 AM
In Lewis Lapham’s last Notebook for Harper’s, he wrote that reading history “lessons our fears of what might happen tomorrow.” Wow, was he wrong about that.
It’s my birthday and my wife got me a label maker 😍 You can probably guess my age from how happy I am about this gift.
January 14, 2025 at 1:58 PM
It’s my birthday and my wife got me a label maker 😍 You can probably guess my age from how happy I am about this gift.
My first thought: Must be intensity interferometry because there’s no way they are beam combining that many telescopes, unless each is heterodyned with an LFC and amp/phase written to disk. [Reads acronym, looks at poster]🤦♂️
25 years since the Super Huge Interferometric Telescope poster (as Mamajek noted on FB). ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1999AAS....
The Super Huge Interferometric Telescope: A New Paradigm In Optical Interferometry
Our proposed Super Huge Interferometric Telescope uses affordable off-the-shelf components and low-cost turnkey adaptive optics with laser pointers for guide stars. This array of 5800 Astroscan<SUP>TM...
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
January 12, 2025 at 12:16 PM
My first thought: Must be intensity interferometry because there’s no way they are beam combining that many telescopes, unless each is heterodyned with an LFC and amp/phase written to disk. [Reads acronym, looks at poster]🤦♂️
Really hoping the Social Security Fairness Act passes the Senate this week. My mom lives on a meager Texas teacher’s pension (below poverty earnings) but can’t collect her or my late father’s social security from their non-govt work because of the GPO provision. SSFA would fix that!
December 18, 2024 at 11:24 PM
Really hoping the Social Security Fairness Act passes the Senate this week. My mom lives on a meager Texas teacher’s pension (below poverty earnings) but can’t collect her or my late father’s social security from their non-govt work because of the GPO provision. SSFA would fix that!
Check out BU PhD-student @alliemccarthy.bsky.social's paper just accepted to ApJL! JWST spectral light curves of SIMP 0136 show clear pressure-dependence, indicating three variability mechanisms: clouds, hot spots and C chemistry. @johannavos.bsky.social is the JWST PI! arxiv.org/abs/2411.16577
The JWST Weather Report from the Isolated Exoplanet Analog SIMP 0136+0933: Pressure-Dependent Variability Driven by Multiple Mechanisms
Isolated planetary-mass objects share their mass range with planets but do not orbit a star. They lack the necessary mass to support fusion in their cores and thermally radiate their heat from formati...
arxiv.org
November 26, 2024 at 3:07 PM
Check out BU PhD-student @alliemccarthy.bsky.social's paper just accepted to ApJL! JWST spectral light curves of SIMP 0136 show clear pressure-dependence, indicating three variability mechanisms: clouds, hot spots and C chemistry. @johannavos.bsky.social is the JWST PI! arxiv.org/abs/2411.16577
Another paper from our BU-RIT-UToronto collaboration on benchmark post common envelope binaries (close white dwarf + main sequence stars). Graduating UToronto PhD student Steffani Grondin's catalog of PCEBs in open clusters is published! www.dunlap.utoronto.ca/astronomers-...
November 16, 2024 at 1:34 PM
Another paper from our BU-RIT-UToronto collaboration on benchmark post common envelope binaries (close white dwarf + main sequence stars). Graduating UToronto PhD student Steffani Grondin's catalog of PCEBs in open clusters is published! www.dunlap.utoronto.ca/astronomers-...
Pro tip: If you are writing NSF proposals and can't upload it because research(dot)gov says you don't have a broader impacts section, when most definitely do have a broader impacts section, try moving your figures further from the broader impacts heading.
November 12, 2024 at 12:20 PM
Pro tip: If you are writing NSF proposals and can't upload it because research(dot)gov says you don't have a broader impacts section, when most definitely do have a broader impacts section, try moving your figures further from the broader impacts heading.
Not sure how many New England Falls we have left on this planet, but yesterday's Boston Half Marathon could not have been nicer.
November 11, 2024 at 10:19 PM
Not sure how many New England Falls we have left on this planet, but yesterday's Boston Half Marathon could not have been nicer.
Several years ago I sent a random message to a generic NASA inquires email about WORF on the ISS for a possible experiment. Don Pettit replied and sent a photo…from space.
On his third space station tour, Don Pettit is once again making magic in space.
arstechnica.com/space/2024/1...
arstechnica.com/space/2024/1...
NASA’s oldest active astronaut is also one of the most curious humans
“We made the mistake of peeking out the Cupola windows.”…
arstechnica.com
October 29, 2024 at 11:40 PM
Several years ago I sent a random message to a generic NASA inquires email about WORF on the ISS for a possible experiment. Don Pettit replied and sent a photo…from space.
Every department has one. Or several. Or all 😂
I, holder of many fancy grants and prizes, am too busy to help. No matter what the issue is.
October 26, 2024 at 2:13 PM
Every department has one. Or several. Or all 😂
Great talks at Cool Stars 22 by BU PhD students Caeley Pittman and Allie McCarthy!
June 25, 2024 at 2:35 PM
Great talks at Cool Stars 22 by BU PhD students Caeley Pittman and Allie McCarthy!
If you missed BU-PhD-student Allie McCarthy's awesome weather-app-inspired poster at Exoplanets V, you can catch the TALK version at Cool Stars 22 on Monday!
June 21, 2024 at 3:02 PM
If you missed BU-PhD-student Allie McCarthy's awesome weather-app-inspired poster at Exoplanets V, you can catch the TALK version at Cool Stars 22 on Monday!
The third largest tall ship in the world is currently a block from my apartment. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish...
June 6, 2024 at 8:16 PM
The third largest tall ship in the world is currently a block from my apartment. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish...
Thanks to a college friend for pointing me to George Dyson's Symphony in G. I had no idea Freeman Dyson's father was a (knighted) composer. www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3-a...
George Dyson - Symphony (1937)
Sir George Dyson KCVO (28 May 1883 – 28 September 1964) was an English musician and composer. After studying at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London, a...
www.youtube.com
May 30, 2024 at 6:05 PM
Thanks to a college friend for pointing me to George Dyson's Symphony in G. I had no idea Freeman Dyson's father was a (knighted) composer. www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3-a...
Hey I know that one.
May 29, 2024 at 7:52 PM
Hey I know that one.