Misty Bentz

@astronomisty.bsky.social

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Astronomer and Professor at Georgia State University. Big fan of black holes, cats, and cross-stitch. Seestar smart telescope enthusiast. Novice gardener with a penchant for native plants.

Posts Replies Media

Zzzzz

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Misty Bentz

IDK who the first person to express this sentiment was, but: "When people talk about traveling to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small, but barely anyone in the present really thinks that they can radically change the future by doing something small."

What are people doing w/neighbors & friends to create & nurture networks of collective care & mutual aid? What small but significant (or super size me and spectacular, and everything in between) actions & practices are people talking about, preparing for, or taking?

One of the two hairy woodpeckers that I heard squabbling this morning while I was in the garden. 🌱 The Merlin app was very helpful in figuring out who I was listening to since I couldn’t see any details from so far away!

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Misty Bentz

Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell was born #OTD in 1943. As a Cambridge grad student in 1967, she discovered an entirely new type of celestial object: Pulsars! In 1974 the Nobel was given to her advisor; she was left off. 🧪 👩‍🔬 🔭 Photo: National Science & Media Museum

In my garden this morning: a Chinese forget-me-not from a packet of wildflower seeds, a purple coneflower that is just opening, and my happy little butterfly weed. I need to plant more butterfly weed next year!

Whomst among my acquaintances has an Aranet4? They’re on sale this month and I’m looking for a portable CO2 sensor. Do they require regular calibration or other maintenance?

Good morning from my garden and this busy little bee 🐝 🌱

Where have you been all my life, fennel apple salad? 🩷 I loosely followed this recipe - left out celery, used gala apples, and subbed pecans for walnuts www.streetsmartkitchen.com/fennel-apple...

Crunchy Fennel Apple Salad with Honey Vinaigrette and Walnutswww.streetsmartkitchen.com This fennel apple salad is a gluten-free and vegan-friendly healthy side dish that only takes 10 mins to put together. So crunchy and yummy!

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Misty Bentz

While JWST has rightfully received a ton of recent attention, Hubble is still performing extremely well & has capabilities that JWST doesn’t. And yet, budget reductions are putting the mission at risk of significant descoping. This is really sad to see, given how successful Hubble has been and is. 🧪

NASA Hubble Operational Paradigm Change Review and Hubble Observations - HST User Documentationhst-docs.stsci.edu

I took the waters at Bath today

I watched this on my recent flight. It was really good (note: with a LOT of profanity), and apparently based on a true story! m.imdb.com/title/tt2023...

Wicked Little Letters (2023) ⭐ 7.0 | Comedy, Crime, Dramam.imdb.com 1h 40m | R

Thank goodness it’s finally started raining, because I have to leave again for a work trip. 😕 I did manage to hand weed about 95% of the chamber bitter out of here, so hopefully it will still look ok when I return. There was so much it looked like a green carpet 🌱

Spent this evening of my 44th birthday observing a different kind of light in the night sky. My tastes clearly haven’t changed all that much since my first birthday.

Sorry little fox! 🦊 He was out for a midnight stroll and did *not* expect me to be sitting here in my lawn chair in the driveway with my telescope 😂 We spooked each other! (I don’t think he stopped by to wish me happy birthday…) Back to collecting photons from NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula 🔭 🧪

Is it possible for a woman to have it all? Can she stay up late taking advantage of clear skies to image some pretty galaxies and nebula, then get up early to take advantage of cool(ish) temperatures to work in the garden? 🔭 🌱 👩🏻‍🔬 Only time and my alarm clock can tell!

Thankful for the 1/2” of rain we got this evening. Grounding myself in small blessings 🌧️ 🌱

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Misty Bentz

Reply to

Romancing the Vote

Fair Fight is based in Georgia but provides grants to voting rights organizations throughout the country.

Every spring, I teach an observing class where students go to the telescope, collect their own data and calibrations overnight, then bring everything home and analyze it. The last several years, I have focused our observations on asteroids because: 🔭 🧪 👩🏻‍🔬

New growth on my elderberry after a deer munched it nearly clean! 🌱 I wanted resilient plants adapted for my area, and it’s so cheering to see the recovery beginning — though I knew in my head it should be fine, it was hard to see the damage nonetheless

I’ve lived here in Atlanta for 14 years and still talk like an outsider, apparently. Also, I did not grow up in CA (it was eastern WA).

PNW is just “we don’t have a word for that” and “all those words sound the same”

Caturday

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Misty Bentz

einstein sent this to curie in 1911 when she was being harassed by tabloids. it contains everything you’d want in such a letter: (1) your haters are trash (2) you’re a baller, a true queen (3) i have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in planck’s radiation field 🧪⚛️

Spotted in one of the newly remodeled women’s restrooms at BWI

Good morning! 🌱

A reasonable attempt to stitch together two partially overlapping fields. Don’t only let your eye be drawn only to the globular cluster, M13. A faraway galaxy, NGC 6207, is also visible! 🔭 🧪

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Reply to

Kaitlin Has Had Enough

The ERA is trans rights. The ERA is Obergefell. It’s abortion access. It’s fair pay. It’s parental leave. It’s the transformation in our society and thinking that we desperately need, because so many people have given up on thinking we can do anything at all. The Equal Rights Amendment is hope.

Finally, some rain early this morning! An entire 1/4”! 🌧️ 🌱 It’s been mid-90s and dry for about 2 weeks straight

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Misty Bentz

"Touch Grass" is propaganda by Big Lawn. Normalize destroying grass in favor of native ground covers to support return of insect life and biodiversity.

🤣

Oh you want me to touch grass? Do you know how bad grass is for the environment? Why are you cheerleading excessive water use and chemical runoff? How about you stop touching grass and go touch some native wildflowers and pollinator habitats you monster.

M102, the Spindle Galaxy, is a spiral galaxy, viewed edge-on from our vantage point. It’s about 44 million light years away and about 77,000 light years across. 🔭 🧪 M102 is similar in size and shape to our own galaxy, just much much farther away! More here: science.nasa.gov/mission/hubb...