Ivan V
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ivanv03x.bsky.social
Ivan V
@ivanv03x.bsky.social
49 followers 41 following 14 posts
Astrophysicist, instrument and calibration scientist at Telespazio UK for the European Space Agency. Herschel, XMM-Newton & PLATO projects.
🇧🇬🇪🇸
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Reposted by Ivan V
itsonlyrockandroll.bsky.social
30th November 1979 Pink Floyd released "The Wall"

#PinkFloyd #AlbumOfTheDay #70s #music #ClassicRock
November 30, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
science.esa.int
Welcome, Plato! 🤗

On 1 September, the spacecraft arrived in the Netherlands by boat from Germany via the Rhine River.

In the coming weeks, engineers will add the sunshield & solar arrays and carry out tests to confirm Plato is ready for launch 🚀
www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

🔭 #Exoplanets
A large cargo ship named VAARWEL, painted in blue and white, is sailing through a canal. The ship has a flag at its front and is passing under an open drawbridge in the background. The canal is lined with trees on both sides, and the sky above is bright blue with scattered white clouds. A few people are visible on the bridge and near the water’s edge. In the foreground, at the bottom right, a small boat with a single person inside floats near the ship. A large green truck from Kübler Spedition is transporting a massive container wrapped in a protective tarp. The container displays several logos and text, including the logo of the European Space Agency (ESA), indicating it is part of a specialised transport operation. In the background, there is an industrial building with large metal silos under a blue sky. In a cleanroom environment, two individuals wearing blue lab coats and hairnets are working around a large spacecraft. The spacecraft is covered in protective plastic sheeting and mounted on a white transport platform labelled with technical instructions. In a cleanroom environment, a group of engineers wearing protective coats, gloves, and face masks are working on a large spacecraft component. The component is mounted on a white wheeled platform. The top of the spacecraft carries 26 cylindrical cameras. The workspace is surrounded by structural supports and white fabric walls, creating a clean and controlled environment.
September 11, 2025 at 12:10 PM
ivanv03x.bsky.social
Highly recommend watching this very interesting documentary. I've been a python advocate since 2003 when I first tried using it in astronomy data analysis: It was still very immature at that time, no astropy (but there was PyIRAF!) but it was fun and away from IDL

youtu.be/GfH4QL4VqJ0?...
Python: The Documentary | An origin story
YouTube video by CultRepo (formerly Honeypot)
youtu.be
September 5, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Reposted by Ivan V
After seven years, very happy to see my book about Herschel (the telescope) finally published. I did describe the big discoveries made with the telescope, but what I really wanted to was capture the crazy stories behind the discoveries. This is not the sanitised version of astromy. #popularastronomy
September 2, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
chrislintott.bsky.social
Is 3I/ATLAS made of cheese?
Is cheese made of 3I/ATLAS?
Is Avi made of cheese?

Who can say?
August 21, 2025 at 10:32 PM
ivanv03x.bsky.social
Trying to install #LinuxMint on an old MacBookPro (late 2008, Intel) and let's see what happens. The last MacOS that can be installed on this laptop is El Capitan and Safari stopped working due to expired licenses for https...
August 16, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Reposted by Ivan V
comraderobot.bsky.social
repost to instantly kill an astronomer
Crescent moon with Jupiter and Venus but the planets are IN the moon there is sky where the dark part of the moon should be
August 15, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
science.esa.int
🚨 Interstellar news!

☄️ The unexpected comet 3I/ATLAS has been captured in the sharpest picture yet by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Discover more about this visitor from outside our Solar System 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed... 🔭 🧪
At the centre of the image is a comet that appears as a teardrop-shaped bluish cocoon of dust coming off the comet’s solid, icy nucleus and seen against a black background. The comet appears to be heading to the bottom left corner of the image. About a dozen short, light blue diagonal streaks are seen scattered across the image, which are from background stars that appeared to move during the exposure because the telescope was tracking the moving comet.
August 7, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Ivan V
science.esa.int
To search for Earth-like planets our Plato mission will use 26 cameras in a design inspired by the compound eyes of insects.

The mission will spot any slight dimming or brightening of a star when a planet passes in front of it.

Learn more about Plato's 'eye' 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭
In the photo three people in white overalls and caps stand in front of the instrumentation in a white hall. The equipment, about twice as tall as the people in the picture, consists of a black four-stepped-platform that supports 24 cameras. These resemble cylinders flaring at the top, not unlike big ice-cream cones. Each cylinder is wrapped in black material; the top flare has a metallic finish and a white lid.
July 25, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
operations.esa.int
Astronomers may have just discovered the third interstellar object passing through the Solar System!

ESA’s Planetary Defenders are observing the object, provisionally known as #A11pl3Z, right now using telescopes around the world.
July 2, 2025 at 8:23 AM
ivanv03x.bsky.social
Run my first code on a real quantum computer (QPU)!🕺
June 26, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Ivan V
handle.invalid
The use of swearing to relieve stress, anger, pain or frustration is known as ‘lalochezia’.
June 24, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Ivan V
esa.int
#ICYMI Happy summer solstice! 🌞

🌍 This year's solstice happened at exactly 04:42 CEST on 21 June, the moment the Sun reached its northernmost point in the sky.

Viewed from space, these images capture a full year of shifting light and shadow, from one June solstice to the next 🧪🔭
June 23, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
shannonstirone.bsky.social
I am beside myself
Space
June 23, 2025 at 4:22 AM
ivanv03x.bsky.social
Very interesting study by Kostas

“The models were right”: astronomers find ‘missing’ matter www.esa.int/Science_Expl...
“The models were right”: astronomers find ‘missing’ matter
Astronomers have discovered a huge filament of hot gas bridging four galaxy clusters. At 10 times as massive as our galaxy, the thread could contain some of the Universe’s ‘missing’ matter, addressing...
www.esa.int
June 20, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
astrokatie.com
I suspect that fact that the vast majority of LLM users don’t seem to have received this (really very simple!) message is because the AI companies have a vested interest in us not understanding it. “ChatGPT is smart, it just makes mistakes sometimes” is much more marketable than the truth.
astrokatie.com Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · Jun 19
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
June 19, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
scurry.bsky.social
How might the Royal Society get out of the Musk-shaped hole it has dug for itself – and strengthen its voice in a world of misinformation? Some suggestions in my latest blog post: occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/...
Conduct Unbecoming – how can the Royal Society escape its Musk box? | Reciprocal Space
occamstypewriter.org
June 19, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Reposted by Ivan V
itsonlyrockandroll.bsky.social
Released today 15th June 1979 "Unknown Pleasures" the debut studio album from Joy Division .

Peter Saville album artwork  is based on an image of radio waves from pulsar CP 1919, from The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy.

#AlbumOfTheDay #ClassicRock #MusicSky #70s
June 15, 2025 at 7:47 AM
ivanv03x.bsky.social
Wife's 3000 km away, so @radiocaroline.bsky.social blasting, and dinner is 'pulpo a la feira'.
June 12, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Ivan V
boulevardbulgaria.bsky.social
Ученик създаде "черна" карта на България, за да покаже опасните пътни участъци в страната.
Ученик създаде "черна" карта на България, за да покаже опасните пътни участъци в страната
boulevardbulgaria.bg
May 29, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Reposted by Ivan V
tomgauld.bsky.social
My latest @newscientist.com cartoon
Title: SOME GRAMMATICAL VOICES FOR USE IN SCIENTIFIC WRITING ACTIVE VOICE e.g. Our team collected samples and then we tested them. CLICKBAIT VOICE e.g. We collected some samples... You won't believe what happened next! PASSIVE VOICE e.g. Samples were collected and tested. HAIKU VOICE e.g. Quiet science lab. Workers arrive with samples. The testing begins. PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE VOICE e.g. We did all the collecting and testing. No need to thank us. Just doing our job. CONSPIRACY VOICE e.g. Mysterious "Samples" were harvested and covertly "tested" by so-called scientists.
April 28, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
itsonlyrockandroll.bsky.social
Remembering album designer Storm Thorgerson who died today 18th April 2013..

www.stormstudiosdesign.com

#MusicSky #ClassicRock
April 18, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Ivan V
chrislintott.bsky.social
Happy Saturn ring plane crossing day to all who celebrate.
astroroyalscot.bsky.social Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · Mar 23
It's #Saturn ring-plane crossing day! A once in a 13-15 yr event when Saturn's rings are edge on, as viewed from Earth, making them appear to disappear! I'm so infuriated that the Sun is in the way meaning no-one will see it! 😡 We'll just have to imagine it 😞

👇The last time it was seen in 1995. 🔭🧪
Two images of Saturn, one from December 1994 when you can the gorgeous ring is prominent around the planet. The one from May 1995, the ring has vanished leaving only two bright dots which are two of Saturns moons. From: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1995/news-1995-25.html
March 23, 2025 at 7:55 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
itsonlyrockandroll.bsky.social
Released today 22nd March 1982

#IronMaiden #AlbumOfTheDay #80s #music #MusicSky #ClassicRock
March 22, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Reposted by Ivan V
cmundell.esa.int
Thank you @ec-euclid.bsky.social consortium scientists for your hard work preparing these data & congratulations to all teams on the release, phenomena science productivity & innovative inclusion of nearly 10,000 citizen science volunteers in this exciting milestone @science.esa.int @esa.int
eucliduk.bsky.social Euclid UK @eucliduk.bsky.social · Mar 19
With today’s #Q1Release, we get a preview of #ESAEuclid’s three Deep Fields: North, South and Fornax. 🤩

The location of the Deep Fields can be seen as the yellow patches on this all-sky view of ESA Gaia’s star map from its second data release in 2018, and ESA Planck’s dust map from 2014. (1/3)
March 19, 2025 at 1:18 PM