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Julianne Dalcanton

@dalcantonjd.bsky.social

Astrophysicist at the Center for Computational Astrophysics & U. Washington.

504 Posts2035 Follower366 Folgt
Julianne Dalcanton@dalcantonjd.bsky.social · last wk.

Just passed a Certain Kind of Man filming his righteous take that the aristocrats in the French Revolution were wrongly targeted, since they were the real wealth and job creators. I am not making this up. It came out of his actual mouth as he huffily tossed his expensive hair.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

What we are talking about here goes beyond science — this is the dismantling of the American administrative state as we know it. This is maybe the biggest change in American governance since the New Deal. It is hard to overstate that THIS IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL. 🧪🔭⚛️

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

NEW: A lot of bad has happened to American science over the last year but nothing comes even close to what’s about to happen if we don’t speak out in opposition to the OMB rule changes and I hope @aaas-socsci.bsky.social @apsphysics.bsky.social and others will launch public campaigns about this. 🧪🔭⚛️

Emily Higgs Kopin@ehkopin.bsky.social · 3mo ago

remember when Google offered unlimited digital storage to colleges and universities and then when adoption reached the right levels rescinded that promise, capped everything, and started pricing those services without the subsidies? idk man just something I think about a lot

pam lach@plach.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Just read in the employee newsletter that the Cali State Univ (CSU)—the largest public uni system in the US—not only plans to continue its OpenAI contract, but "will expand toward a multi-vendor AI environment, giving our campuses greater access to a broader ecosystem of AI tools and capabilities" 😡

Julianne Dalcanton@dalcantonjd.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I am not ready to face the level of cringe in this to dare watching it, but Frank is a lovely interviewer, and there is backstory about why I haven’t shut up about Arp systems for 30 years.

American Astronomical Society (AAS)@aas.org · 3mo ago

🔭 New AAS Journals video! Julianne Dalcanton (Flatiron Institute/University of Washington) discusses new Hubble imaging of 216 interacting galaxies from the Arp and Arp–Madore catalogs, revealing rich structures that will support future studies with JWST and ALMA. 📺 youtu.be/eewSudl4w34

Puff the Magic Hater@mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 4mo ago

You have more in common with the people of Iran than you do with anyone in this administration, any member of the technocracy, anyone who is profiting from this war, or any billionaire. When you see Iranians forming human chains outside key infrastructure sites, you should feel a sense of kinship.

Julianne Dalcanton@dalcantonjd.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Please spread the word! In addition to becoming an important part of the MESA project, the person in this role would have opportunities to collaborate on scientific software across CCA, which has a vibrant, interactive community of scientists and code developers.

Flatiron Institute@flatironinstitute.org · 4mo ago

We're seeking a research software engineer to develop, maintain, and contribute to community-oriented software instrument tool MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics). Learn more and apply: https://apply.interfolio.com/182988 #science #astrophysics #hiring

text that reads: We're hiring! Software Engineer, MESA
Alex Ji@alexji.bsky.social · 5mo ago

🔭 Storytime! This paper consumed my soul for a month and it turns out that you have to look at your 2D spectroscopic data. Thread... ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024OJAp...

Screenshot of paper text: In particular, our Na D detection is in direct conflict with the clear non-detection shown in their extended data figure 1. We thus downloaded the data used in X23 from the SMOKA archive (Baba et al. 2002) and reduced it in IRAF (Tody 1986, 1993; Fitzpatrick et al. 2024) with the HDS routines. The S/N of the HDS spectrum is lower than the HIRES spectrum, but we clearly see the two stellar Na D lines, as well as the stronger interstellar absorption components (Fig 1). The stellar Na lines are also visible on the raw 2D science image, where we identify some cosmic rays near the Na D lines. We suspect cosmic ray removal could have impacted the data reduction in X23. Furthermore, the 2D inspection shows that the star is not centered on the slit, making sky subtraction more difficult. As a final check, we measured equivalent widths of the lines we analyzed in our reduction of the HDS spectrum, finding no significant differences after accounting for spectrum noise. In any case, our higher S/N Keck/HIRES spectrum should provide a more reliable abundance analysis
Sarah Kendrew@sarahkendrew.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I'm going to expand this statement to say that astronomers should actually look at their data whatever the format. Yes pipelines and high level science products are great, but you learn a lot from just spending some time exploring the counts-on-pixels images, even for spectroscopy. 🔭

Mike Baker@mikebaker.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Two decades ago, billionaire spending accounted for just 0.3 percent of federal campaign contributions. Now the 300 families we examined are giving an average of $10 million each — equivalent to the combined voice of roughly 100,000 typical donors. 2/7