Dr Adam McMaster
@adammc.space
I’m an astronomer at the University of Southampton. Finding black holes with the help of citizen scientists at https://black-hole-hunters.org
I write about astronomy at https://three-alpha.space
I write about astronomy at https://three-alpha.space
Got another shot, with slightly less cloud 🔭
September 7, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Got another shot, with slightly less cloud 🔭
Out for a nighttime dog walk and caught the eclipse through the clouds 🔭
September 7, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Out for a nighttime dog walk and caught the eclipse through the clouds 🔭
Objectively harder to read with Liquid Glass
September 7, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Objectively harder to read with Liquid Glass
Apparently GPT-5 is a PhD-level expert on "everything" yet it can't correctly identify an incorrectly folded light curve of a pulsating star. It looks nothing like an eclipsing binary or an exoplanet. I think my job is safe for now 🧪🔭
August 8, 2025 at 10:33 AM
Apparently GPT-5 is a PhD-level expert on "everything" yet it can't correctly identify an incorrectly folded light curve of a pulsating star. It looks nothing like an eclipsing binary or an exoplanet. I think my job is safe for now 🧪🔭
My son (4) asked me to build him a den. Luckily he drew me a detailed plan of how it should look 😬
July 27, 2025 at 6:35 PM
My son (4) asked me to build him a den. Luckily he drew me a detailed plan of how it should look 😬
Ordered a solar filter from eBay and this is how it arrived 😒 I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find these to buy online. Can anyone recommend somewhere (in the UK) to buy filters for a Celestron Astromaster 130? 🔭
July 8, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Ordered a solar filter from eBay and this is how it arrived 😒 I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find these to buy online. Can anyone recommend somewhere (in the UK) to buy filters for a Celestron Astromaster 130? 🔭
All I know is my phone does this with old events in Google calendars. Here’s it copying the details of a gig I attended in 2013. It’s just doing a text search of the titles.
May 29, 2025 at 10:06 PM
All I know is my phone does this with old events in Google calendars. Here’s it copying the details of a gig I attended in 2013. It’s just doing a text search of the titles.
Was just outside and happened to look up and see the International Space Station. Probably the fifth or sixth time I’ve seen it by accident. It’s the bright one (obviously) 🔭
May 19, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Was just outside and happened to look up and see the International Space Station. Probably the fifth or sixth time I’ve seen it by accident. It’s the bright one (obviously) 🔭
Wow! Just look at this photo of the Milky Way taken by astronaut Don Pettit on the ISS. Taken with a homemade tracker to counteract the orbital motion. It kind of looks like an aurora, but that's actually just clouds just before dawn. The purple colour comes from nitrogen scattering sunlight. 🧪🔭
May 14, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Wow! Just look at this photo of the Milky Way taken by astronaut Don Pettit on the ISS. Taken with a homemade tracker to counteract the orbital motion. It kind of looks like an aurora, but that's actually just clouds just before dawn. The purple colour comes from nitrogen scattering sunlight. 🧪🔭
Wow, how have I never seen this photo until now? The atmosphere of Mars, taken by Viking 1 in 1976 🔭🧪 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma...
April 29, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Wow, how have I never seen this photo until now? The atmosphere of Mars, taken by Viking 1 in 1976 🔭🧪 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma...
This composite image from last year of the microquasar SS 433 still amazes me. You can see where the black hole is, and 100 light years from that you can see the jets it is creating, and surrounding all that is the remnant of the supernova that created it. chandra.si.edu/photo/2024/s... 🔭🧪
January 21, 2025 at 3:30 PM
This composite image from last year of the microquasar SS 433 still amazes me. You can see where the black hole is, and 100 light years from that you can see the jets it is creating, and surrounding all that is the remnant of the supernova that created it. chandra.si.edu/photo/2024/s... 🔭🧪
“The empire’s largest jeweller” 😬
January 18, 2025 at 4:27 PM
“The empire’s largest jeweller” 😬
Finally a clear night to have a go with the new telescope 🔭
Lessons learned:
1. Focusing takes a very fine touch
2. Even a little wind is annoying
3. I should wear thicker socks!
Lessons learned:
1. Focusing takes a very fine touch
2. Even a little wind is annoying
3. I should wear thicker socks!
December 20, 2024 at 8:32 AM
Finally a clear night to have a go with the new telescope 🔭
Lessons learned:
1. Focusing takes a very fine touch
2. Even a little wind is annoying
3. I should wear thicker socks!
Lessons learned:
1. Focusing takes a very fine touch
2. Even a little wind is annoying
3. I should wear thicker socks!
For motivation while I was writing my PhD thesis I kept a record of the word count each day as I was working. Here's a chart of the total – can you spot when I finally got the last bits of my code working so I could just focus on writing? 😂🔭🧪
November 26, 2024 at 11:40 AM
For motivation while I was writing my PhD thesis I kept a record of the word count each day as I was working. Here's a chart of the total – can you spot when I finally got the last bits of my code working so I could just focus on writing? 😂🔭🧪
20 years ago today! The Swift gamma ray satellite launched on 20 November 2004 on a mission to study gamma ray bursts and other high energy phenomena. The mission was planned to last two years yet it's still going strong 🧪🔭
November 20, 2024 at 4:16 PM
20 years ago today! The Swift gamma ray satellite launched on 20 November 2004 on a mission to study gamma ray bursts and other high energy phenomena. The mission was planned to last two years yet it's still going strong 🧪🔭
Relativistic beaming is Special Relativity's way of making things moving towards us look brighter than things moving away from us. It's also the reason the Event Horizon Telescope images are brighter on one side – that side is rotating towards us 🔭🧪 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativ...
November 20, 2024 at 12:35 PM
Relativistic beaming is Special Relativity's way of making things moving towards us look brighter than things moving away from us. It's also the reason the Event Horizon Telescope images are brighter on one side – that side is rotating towards us 🔭🧪 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativ...
You’ve probably seen the first black hole image. This is the galaxy that hosts it, M87. It has a huge 5,000 light year jet streaming away from the black hole. The best part? There’s another jet going the other way, hidden by relativistic beaming as it’s travelling at nearly the speed of light 🧪🔭
November 20, 2024 at 12:24 AM
You’ve probably seen the first black hole image. This is the galaxy that hosts it, M87. It has a huge 5,000 light year jet streaming away from the black hole. The best part? There’s another jet going the other way, hidden by relativistic beaming as it’s travelling at nearly the speed of light 🧪🔭
On mine you’d need to turn this square bit with a spanner I think
November 19, 2024 at 10:36 AM
On mine you’d need to turn this square bit with a spanner I think
The Moon is right next to
Jupiter at the moment. Jupiter is the bright one just to the right of the Moon 🔭
Also it still amazes me how good phones are at taking photos in low light now.
Jupiter at the moment. Jupiter is the bright one just to the right of the Moon 🔭
Also it still amazes me how good phones are at taking photos in low light now.
November 17, 2024 at 9:21 PM
The Moon is right next to
Jupiter at the moment. Jupiter is the bright one just to the right of the Moon 🔭
Also it still amazes me how good phones are at taking photos in low light now.
Jupiter at the moment. Jupiter is the bright one just to the right of the Moon 🔭
Also it still amazes me how good phones are at taking photos in low light now.
Post a picture you took (no description) to bring some zen to the timeline
November 17, 2024 at 9:53 AM
Post a picture you took (no description) to bring some zen to the timeline
The Moon looking creepy tonight 🔭
November 15, 2024 at 10:16 PM
The Moon looking creepy tonight 🔭
I absolutely loved mine. I saw one at the Computer History Museum in California and was so excited I took a photo.
October 24, 2024 at 7:35 PM
I absolutely loved mine. I saw one at the Computer History Museum in California and was so excited I took a photo.