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nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Nathan Murphy
@nathanmurphy.bsky.social
140 followers 220 following 530 posts
I wear glasses now.
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nathanmurphy.bsky.social
I’m getting reports of naked eye aurorae as far south as Alamogordo,NM and Hilton Head,SC !

Here’s northwest Denver
Very distinct aurorae with hues of green, red, and purple! A rare sight in a light polluted city sky!
November 12, 2025 at 3:48 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Ah! Found it. On iOS: Go to the udm14 site (link shared just now) then tap the square-with-an-arrow. Scroll down and you’ll see “add to Home Screen”
October 20, 2025 at 9:51 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Intellivision title screen for ASTROSMASH! Copyright 1981 Mattel
August 7, 2025 at 2:26 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
The 3 drones from Silent Running
July 11, 2025 at 3:01 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Lentil sized hail and rain in Berkeley.
A photo of a neighborhood in the midst of a downpour. There is a big rainbow in the distance.
July 7, 2025 at 12:44 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
here's the DSS image of roughly the same area. it approximates what one would see in a large (16"+) amateur scope in decent skies.
Sloan Digital Sky Survey (DSS) image of the famous Rubin area with twin spiral galaxies, in the lower center of the field. Those are NGC4411A (rt) and B (lt). there is a group of 4 interacting galaxies in the top center of the photo, NGHC 4410A B and C
June 25, 2025 at 5:03 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
fuck it, buy records.
@ihavethatonvinyl.com all vinyl 'cept JH
a snippet of a screenshot of what I just bought on band camp: new records by Messa, Body Mena, Jumpstarted Plowhards (mike fucking watt), Lafayette Afro-Rock band, and Chelsea Wolfe yes, all vinyl+download except JH
April 11, 2025 at 11:29 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
there is Only 1
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...
a picture of L-R Mike Fucking Watt, D Boon, and George Hurley. From Wikipedia, it looks like early Minutemen here, as Watt looks 12 years old.
April 7, 2025 at 4:10 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
A Lock Screen made from a crop of a fucking kickass John Berkey spaceship with really awesome flames and colors and stuff in the background. I’m out and about so my car isn’t charging.
March 28, 2025 at 9:54 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
crap. thought I had more. just WTSHNN and WOWY.
L-R: vinyl, 45s, CD, CD boxset from 2007 (forgot about that) and vinyl boxset from 2017 or so
L-R: my collection of various released of U2 The Joshua Tree. 1987 vinyl, 45s from 1987, 1987 (or so) CD, CD boxset from 2007, vinyl boxset from 2017 or so
March 5, 2025 at 4:09 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
I’m no expert! But this book got me thinking about.
Cover shot of “Hut to Hut USA” by Bradley and Demas. Published by mountaineer books
December 15, 2024 at 12:22 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Great TN-Bama News. Love it when the feed tells me things without, you know, telling me things.
Sky screenshot of consecutive posts. One says “they should fire Alabama” and another that say “how bout them vols” which is a common phrase in East Tennessee, around Knoxville, when the home team wins. Here, it’s an understatement cause we beat fucking Bama
October 20, 2024 at 1:46 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Always
The cover of the best rock record of the 90s: fIREHOSE, “flyin’ the flannel” It is a close up of the chest pocket of Mike Watt’s red/brown/yellow flannel shirt. It was their last record on SST
October 15, 2024 at 4:25 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
First time there with the 18”, last year was rained out.
Ambitious observing list this year:
- quasars
- AGN
- extragalactic globular clusters, HII regions, OB associations
- dwarf galaxies in and out of the local group
- barking spiders
An 18” Dobsonian telescope setup just after sunset. Looking west, we see the fading light from the sun, it is perfectly clear. In the background is an SUV, some small tables with cases full of eyepieces and other astronomy gear
September 19, 2024 at 6:04 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
This is one of only 2 or 3 opportunities I get for observing at all each year, and these are among the most accessible truly dark (bortle 1-2) skies.
Map centered on the corner where Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico meet. It shows an estimate of the sky darkness, with dark gray and black the darkest. The red pointer is indicating a spot with Bortle 1 or 2 skies, far from bottle 4-5 light pollution. It can be darker than NELM 7 here. It is so dark that the Milky Way can cast a shadow on white paper.
September 19, 2024 at 5:53 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
A panaromic photo of the southeast shoreof Half Moon Caye, of the coast of Belize. The left side of the photo shows a sandy beach at high tide. There are dramatic rocks just off shore. In the distance, palm trees and clear blue sky
September 1, 2024 at 3:20 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
you know, this one:
Raymond Pettibon cover art from Sonic Youth's album "Goo" which was a big hit. it features (from wikipedia description) an illustration of two sunglasses-wearing British mods, based on a photograph of Maureen Hindley and David Smith, two witnesses in the Moors murders trial.
August 28, 2024 at 2:14 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
This came up on the radio, and @weirdguita.rs should use this to have Nick Lowe pose with the WGOTD.
Also, this is a WGOTD submission. (Well, 6 of them)
The album art from Nick Lowe’s “Jesus of Cool” album. It has Nick posing with 6 weird guitars just a 2x3 grid like Hollywood Squares or some shit
August 20, 2024 at 12:07 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Just reminiscing
An image of VPOTUS holding the great DIY metal record “Akuma no uta” by the coolest band in the world, BORIS. she evidently scored it crate digging with Walz at a used record store in St. Paul or whatever
August 8, 2024 at 3:06 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Even VPOTUS knows
Madam Vice President pictured holding the best rock record of the last 50 years. “flyin’ the flannel” by fIREHOSE
July 31, 2024 at 12:42 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Just pandering now.
An image made from the glitch tool (https://kamala-holding-vinyls.glitch.me/) that has Madam Vice President showing off the major label debut for the shoegaze band Hum: You’d Prefer and Astronaut.
July 29, 2024 at 6:20 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
A panoramic photo of a classic Yucatán beach. There are rocks in the foreground, with the sandy beach extending off to the left toward the horizon. There are several palm trees along the coast.
June 17, 2024 at 2:32 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Get your shit together Google. 31+14+2+29 = ?!?
A screenshot from Google landing page for the women’s NCAA basketball tournament. It has the final score of the Iowa-LSU game at 94-45 in the lede, but 94-76 in the box score.
April 2, 2024 at 3:25 AM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Sunspot! Active area13590. About 1300 MST. 4” mak with a sun funnel, about 162x. 🔭
A photo of the view of the sun, and sunspots that is active area 13590. The view is created using eyepiece projection onto a screen. Colloquially called using a sun funnel. A photo of the telescope and sun funnel setup. The scope is a 4” maksutov-cassegrain. The eyepiece is a zoom design, allowing views of the sun at different magnifications. This is another safe method for viewing the sun with a (small) telescope. It allows many people to see the view, as the eyepiece view is projected on the screen, here supported by a funnel.
February 23, 2024 at 8:28 PM
nathanmurphy.bsky.social
Glad Eric Joyner captured it at the heyday of serving the robot community.
A photo of a print of the Eric Joyner painting The Connoisseurs (2013). It features robots smoking cigars and donuts from NYC’s Village Cigars, at the Christopher street 1 stop
February 22, 2024 at 4:22 PM