Hmm my image is not showing for me but it seems blusky currently has some issues with images for new posts? Also this one was a fairly large one...

Monochrome image of thick lunar crescent against black background. The horns point up and left. Maximum brightness is at the limb. Along the terminator numerous craters and ridges are visible with well-defined shadows.

This evening's waxing crescent #Moon 25% illuminated. 100 x 20 ms Ha 3.5 nm in Celestron 8" + 0.33x reducer.

The #moon is very close to the #Pleiades today. With strong #Earthshine too. Here's a #timelapse as it sets.
If you pay close attention you can see the relative motion of the moon against the stars.
🔭 🧪 #astrophotography

How governments have tried to hide information about the Iran war online Governments are blocking the internet, banning social media posts and cutting access to commercial satellite images. But experts say that efforts to censor information have had mixed results.

Last week the @npr.org team interviewed our researcher @godin.bsky.social about the obstacles faced by those looking for open source information on the Iran-Israel-US conflict and why the development of new tools is important within this space: www.npr.org/2026/04/10/n...

21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. 22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

Palantir is part of the "regressive and harmful" subculture that destroyed USAID, terminated mRNA research, trashed NIH & CDC & FDA & EPA, and brought back measles. Within the next few years, their subculture will be responsible for more preventable deaths than any other in human history.
/6

Federal judge unloads on ‘unserious’ RFK Jr., says anti-trans policy showed his ‘cruelty’ Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai vacated the “Kennedy Declaration,” finding it unlawfully attempted to override medical standards and restrict care for transgender youth.

Breaking: HHS’s ban on gender-affirming care is struck down. Rarely have I read a ruling this sharply worded.

“This case is one of a long list of examples of how a leader’s wanton disregard for the rule of law causes very real harm to very real people.”

www.advocate.com/politics/nat...

power point slide showing the camera locations on the orion spacecraft. For Artemis II, the vehicle-mounted OIS comprises: • 4 Solar Array Wing (SAW) cameras • 3 in-cabin wireless cameras • 3 external wired cameras • 2 human-health monitoring cameras • 2 camera controllers • 1 Fwd Bay high speed camera Other optical systems: • 4 wireless cameras for NatGeo payload (proprietary data) • 4 Portable computing devices (tablets) with webcams • 2 Nikon D5 DSLR camera bodies (+ lenses, batteries, etc.) • 2 ZCube video encoders (prime + spare) • 1 Docking Camera (DCAM) • 1 Optical Navigation (OPNAV) camera • 1 drag-on temp-mount camera to monitor crew ingress (KSC system)

Of course I only found this post-flight, but there is a good presentation of all the camera systems installed on the Artemis II Orion spacecraft. #Artemis

Recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJzU...
PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20...

Latest AI models could threaten world banking system, financial officials warn Anthropic’s new Claude Mythos Preview model could exposé vulnerabilities in lenders’ cyber defences

Latest AI models could threaten world banking system, financial officials warn

Here is the UHD-4K version of this awesome video on my Vimeo account, as it did not want to upload on Bluesky. It shows so many details... You can use the Download button below the player to get the video file in a variety of formats, including the original one.

vimeo.com/1183880414/c... #Artemis

NANCY BY ERNIE BUSHMILLER P1- NANCY IS RUSHING TO GET OUTSIDE NANCY: I MUST RUN OUT AND SEE MY FAVORITE SIGHT P2-NANCY IS WATCHING A FULL MOON RISE OVER THE YUMM’S CONE CO. FACTORY P3- NANCY IS STILL WATCHING THE MOON RISE OVER THE ICE CREAM CONE FACTORY P4- NANCY: WOW.. WHAT A DELICIOUS SIGHT THE MOON HAS MOVED OVER THE FACTORIES GIANT DISPLAY OF AN ICE CREAM CONE, SO THE MOON LOOKS JUST LIKE A GIANT SCOOP OF ICE CREAM SITTING ON TOP

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller
April 14,1853

Glitter Biodegradable glitter is an innovative, eco-friendly alternative to traditional glitter made from plastic. This shimmering material is designed to break down naturally over time, making it an ideal ch...

Found out about biodegradable glitter because of a thread on Reddit where people want to be ready when It Happens. Now I’m struggling with choices. Which one would you carry around to spontaneously celebrate?

Submaxxing

Now it seems mostly debris floating by at high speed wonder if this means they just opened the lock to let the fish pass.

De Visdeurbel — De Visdeurbel Zie je een vis? Druk op de Visdeurbel dan opent onze sluiswachter de sluis en kunnen de vissen doorzwemmen.

Lot of fish activity currently going on at the fish door bell live stream in Utrecht visdeurbel.nl

I worked with Candy Hansen on the Cassini UVIS team and the MRO HiRISE team. She was smart and kind and relentless in pursuing understanding of the solar system, and so welcoming to new team members. She made Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" photo actually happen. Ad astra, Candy. Thank you for everything.

a screenshot of the "New Bestsellers" list from Substack, with Andrew Tate in the #1 position

Hey, look at Substack promoting Andrew Tate as the #1 new bestseller. The company's amoral leadership & backers will platform anyone, even ludicrously toxic rapists & human traffickers.

Katamari Damacy-style game where you stagger around a large grocery store collecting more and more items you have to awkwardly position about your body because like a fool you thought you didn’t need a cart.

This morning I found out our community has lost someone I consider to be a giant. There just aren’t a lot of women senior to me in the field and though our interests only overlapped with “outer planets” she always went out of her way to support me. I’ve been hearing the same thing a lot today 💔

He recorded 10,000 concerts on tape. Now they’re streaming for free The music collection of a 59-year-old Chicago man who attended more than 10,000 concerts and recorded them on cassette tapes is slowly being digitized and released online for free.

The music collection of a Chicago man who attended more than 10,000 concerts and recorded them on cassette tapes is slowly being digitized and released online for free.www.koin.com/entertainment-news/he-re...

I just don't like the split into the rectangular + polar maps it seems an unnecessary extra step during identification as long as I cannot afford to put my scope into lunar polar orbit 🙂

(which annoyingly isn't linked to on the 1:10.000.000 map index page which only has the nearside / farside / polar maps everytime I try to find a link for this again it is a struggle)

Also this map here is my goto first stop for identifying features during lunar observing as it shows the full lunar disk at reasonable resolution pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i2769/

Peter Magyar confirmed that Szijjarto, Orbán's FM, has barricaded himself with some of his closest colleagues and is shredding documents related to the sanctions on Russia any other evidence of treason.

‘Hungary has chosen Europe’: EU leaders jubilant after Péter Magyar’s victory over Orbán Congratulations pour in from across EU, with leaders from Spain, Poland, France, Britain, Denmark, Romania, Sweden and beyond hailing a new chapter

‘Hungary has chosen Europe’: EU leaders jubilant after Péter Magyar’s victory over Orbán #EUNews

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/13/hungar...

Artemis's distance was changing pretty slowly for a couple of hours around apogee, during which the ISS was whizzing around the Earth. It turns out that 43 min earlier at 2221 UTC Apr 6, when ISS was passing over Kansas City, the ISS crew and the Artemis 2 crew were a record 419578 km apart.

Fun fact: many of the prettiest photos taken by robotic spacecraft were similarly framed ahead of time by humans using simulators of view geometry to pick when the spacecraft should shoot the photo. Case in point: this photo of Europa over Jupiter from New Horizons science.nasa.gov/image-detail...

Sometimes I buy minerals just because they’re funny

I observed Orion spacecraft of Artemis II mission again, after Moon flyby: on 2026-04-08 from 15:32 to 15:59 UT remotely using iTelescope.Net T33 (0.3-m f/9 reflector + CCD) in Australia, did astrometry.

#ArtemisII #spacecraft #Orionspacecraft #space
@astrodave.bsky.social
@davidbflower.bsky.social

I did a double major in Religious Studies and Economics. I would like to be a little less relevant, thank you very much.

I think Francis handpicked Leo as his successor to do exactly what he's doing - to ensure MAGA Catholics do not know a moment's peace - and I think this Pentagon crash-out is proof that they know it will work. Trump got something like 58% of the Catholic base; Vance getting less would mortify him