Micro Monday is a day to find new people to follow. Let’s do another roll call. From last week’s down-to-earth topic (gardening), let’s go celestial: who likes space and astronomy? 🚀

Leave a comment on this thread so other like-minded folks can find and follow your microblog!

@jean I’m interested in space stuff, though I wouldn’t call myself a super-fan, and don’t really post about the topic.

@jean Not only do I like space, we’re literally dependent on it, so I love it, and not just because of that, but the (seemingly) infinity (and beyond). Please count me in! ♾ 🔭🪐☄️🛸👽🛰🚀👨‍🚀🧑‍🚀

@jean Space, and space exploration in particular, excites me to no end. Be it mid century NASA stories or modern day efforts, I’m here for all of it 🪐

@jean Right here! I still feel pangs of regret sometimes that I never became an astronomer.

@jean It’s been a while since I myself did any space or astronomy things. But I did work on a Big Science astronomy project for a while, and did the sidewalk astronomy outreach too. That was fun, I should do that again sometime. My spouse works in the space industry which is heckin’ cool!

@jean I wouldn't say that I'm a space nerd, but I do like following the launch and operation of rovers, probes, and spacecrafts like the Webb telescope. The level of engineering that goes into those projects is awe inspiring.

@jean I am a bit of a space nerd and also space weather (mainly the effect of the sun on earth)

Thank you @jean, excited to see so many space nerds in here. Hello fellow cosmic buffs @dejus @odd @kimahlberg @pimoore @garo @lmika and @ronguest! What got you all interested in space? For me, it was my school omitting chapters about the solar system for some myterious reason and then curiosity got the better out of me.

Also do check out my professional space blog if you like to read 'popular science' articles on space exploration and want to track every single major update in our return to the Moon! 🚀🌗

@garo, I loved doing sidewalk astronomy the couple of times that I did. It's really cool your spouse works in the space industry. What does he/she do?

@lmika, Space engineering is really insane, I still can't fathom we can send things out of Earth and land on other bodies with the precision that we do.

@ronguest, Space weather is so underrated! I'm worried about the looming solar maximum.

@uncertainquark Thanks for asking! I got into space in elementary school from some science lessons and then doing some book reporting. I was introduced to the planetarium director at the local community college to do some interviews (it was a education demonstration project with the school district). And there was this one book in the library I must have checked out a dozen times. I can still picture the cover.

My spouse works for a telecommunication satellite company. She's literally done rocket science 😎 and orbital mechanics and all kinds of cool as heck stuff. She's currently doing software simulation of the onboard systems.

@uncertainquark If I’m honest, what got me interested in space was the Tintin albums “Destination Moon” and “Explorers on the Moon”. Since childhood I’ve maintained space rockets should be red and white and must land in an upright configuration. One of those have come true…

@uncertainquark Thanks! For me it was looking at the night sky where I lived, a place with very little light pollution, and also looking through my uncles Atlas of the Solar System. I was a bit awestruck by it all, and it made me wonder things like “are we alone?”, “what’s outside the universe?”, “will we ever go to mars?”, and so on. 🌌

@jean Raises Hand. Space Nerd. Completed a couple of evening astronomy courses locally. Been to the ESA open day. Spent part of Christmas morning watching the launch of the James Webb. Probably all kicked of by Cap James T. Kirk back in the day.

@uncertainquark You might want to follow Dr. Tamitha Skov. She is an expert on the effects of solar weather, an educator and an award winning communicator. Great source of facts vs hype.

@jean What a great thread! Hi, everyone. I work at HiRISE at the University of Arizona. We have a camera in orbit around Mars and take high resolution images of the Martian surface every day. My job is to make sure the images download and arrive in Tucson to be processed so we can release them to the public and science community quickly.

@richardleis What a cool job! Where can we see the photos?

@jean Here's the link: www.uahirise.org We're getting ready to release our next batch of images tomorrow.

@jean Whoops, somehow left an empty comment earlier!

I’m interested in space! Mostly watch rocket launches on YouTube, haha. Hope to see one in person sometime soon!

@dfj I thought you were being minimalist!

Thanks for the replies everyone and thanks Jean for spurring this great thread.

@ronguest Great resource, thank you.

@richardleis Your job is cool! I regularly enjoy seeing HiRISE images, thank you for all that you do!

@richardleis Woah cool. I have one of your pictures printed out very large on my wall, framed and everything. It's gorgeous. I've been following the tumblr for literally years and years.

@jean @uncertainquark Ooh me. Very casually interested in space, but interested all the same. I grew up (spent the first 7 or so years of my life) on the Space Coast of Florida, watching shuttle launches out my bedroom window (including Challenger 💔). Still enjoy a bit of astronomy now and then and looking forward to taking my kid to a planetarium sometime. We did get to a special event at the planetarium when Mercury transited the Sun a few years ago.

@KimberlyHirsh It's so awesome that you got to watch the Shuttle launches! I was mesmerized during my first trip to the planetarium as a child, and I hope your kid enjoys it just as much.

@uncertainquark It was so cool.

@uncertainquark Wow, awesome! I love hearing that people are seeing our images. Mars remains such a fascinating world.

@garo That's amazing! Which image did you print out? These images are so gigantic and have such great detail. A blessing and a curse when it comes to processing them, lol!

@richardleis I forget exactly what or where this is. I do remember using some tool on the website to download a massive TIFF, and then I edited a bit from there in Lightroom before sending to a printer that then mailed back this amazing thing:

[edit:] for those out of the thread context, this is a picture of the surface of Mars by the HiRISE orbiter that I got printed a long time ago.

@garo Wow! That image looks so good framed. Do you mind if I share this post/image with the HiRISE team? This is so cool.

@richardleis that would be so cool 😁

@jean Hah! Not intentionally, anyway!

@jean Missed this thread last year as I was new to micro.blog at that time. I am not interested in space in terms of rockets and space travel but, I like to visit celestial objects using my telescope and camera. Check out this page for my latest astronomy activities.

@Parag Your photos are amazing. They always delight me when they appear in my timeline. I’ve been thinking about how well you capture celestial spectacle the last few nights, while observing the sky for the Perseids.