Having an "ñ" in my surname means constantly being gaslit by online forms that tell me my name can't contain special characters only to then tell me that my password must contain special characters, three emojis and a valid chess move.

1/ This pic I took a few years ago at ESO's Paranal Observatory in #Chile almost didn't look like this! I was about to go to sleep when I saw that the folks at the UT4 telescope were using the lasers, so I decided to snap a quick shot.

But when reviewing the image on my camera's screen I noticed something was off. I looked up and saw that some clouds had rolled in within seconds! Here you can see the lasers going through two cloud layers.

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophotography #science

1/ It's amazing that we can see details on the surface of some stars, but watching them move is even cooler 🤩

Using ALMA, astronomers have followed the motion of gas bubbles on the red giant star R Doradus over the course of a month. The bubbles are huge, about 75 times bigger than the Sun!

Press release: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2412/
Video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaxyu4RP9-I

📷 ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/W. Vlemmings et al.

#astrodon #astronomy #science #space

#SilentSunday #astronomy #astrophotography

This solar #eclipse happened 5 years ago today, but my memories of it are as vivid as if it had been yesterday. I lived in #Chile back then, so I hopped to ESO's La Silla observatory, which was in the path of totality.

This was my second total solar eclipse, but the fact that we were at high elevation made it unique, as we could see the shadow of the #Moon coming towards us from the Pacific Ocean. My humble pic below doesn't make it justice!

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophotography #science

1/3 The last mirror segment of ESO's Extremely Large Telescope has been cast! The ELT's main mirror will be 39-m wide –– too large to be made from a single piece. Instead, the mirror will consist of 798 hexagonal segments working together.

133 extra segments will be needed during normal operations, as we'll have to recoat 2 segments/day. Together with 18 spares, this makes a total of 949 segments, and the last one has now been cast.

➡️ https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2410/

#astronomy #engineering

📷 SCHOTT

1/4 "All those protoplanetary discs will be lost, like tears in a rain of ultraviolet photons."

Ok, it doesn't sound as cool as the actual quote, but still 😉

This tear-shaped object is a protoplanetary disc –the birthplace of planets around another star– observed with ESO's Very Large Telescope. Material from the disc is being stripped away by a bright star beyond the upper-right corner, outside of the field of view, hence this cometary shape.

📷 ESO/M. L. Aru et al.

#astronomy #science

#SilentSunday #astronomy #astrodon

In the 2019 solar #eclipse in Chile there was this couple next to me. Right when totality started, the woman turned around, facing away from the Sun, and asked her husband to take a pic of her with the eclipsed Sun behind her.

The guy was visibly confused, his face clearly saying "wtf are you doing, you're gonna miss it." He struggled to get a pic, as the Sun/Moon are much smaller on the sky than what most people think.

Totality is brief, enjoy it! Forget about pics if you're not experienced.

Your periodic reminder that Stellarium is an amazing planetarium tool. Free, #OpenSource and very easy to use. There are desktop apps, mobile apps and a web version.

https://stellarium.org/

#astronomy #foss #science