Firefly taking flight

Impressive and beautiful solar halo this morning in #Dublin. Cirrus clouds containing ice crystals and sunlight refraction and scattering produce this phenomenon. Easier (and safer) to see with sunglasses, of course.

POV: You chose to study your master at Trinity College Dublin 🎓✨ Discover our masters programmes: tcd.ie/postgraduate

"El lado oscuro de la purpurina: el microplástico que puede alterar la química de los océanos.", por Kristina Petra Zubovic y J. D. Rodriguez-Blanco, de Trinity College Dublin School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin iCRAG Centre en The Conversation ES theconversation.com/el-lado-oscuro…

La purpurina no es tan divertida como parece: ¿sabías que puede cambiar la química del océano? Nos lo cuentan Kristina Petra Zubovic y J. D. Rodriguez-Blanco (Trinity College Dublin): theconversation.com/el-lado-oscuro…

Fantastic Teaching Awards ceremony at Trinity College Dublin, with our President and Provost, Prof. Linda Doyle, and great colleagues from School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Martin Sokol. Beautiful academic atmosphere. Proud to be part of this dynamic and inspiring institution.

Trinity climbs to 75th place in 2026 QS QS World University Rankings up 12 places from last year, its highest ranking in a decade. The increase is due in large part to strong performance in the Academic Reputation and the Employer Reputation categories. Read more at tcd.ie/news_events/ar…

Born on this day, W. H. Bragg, together with his son Lawrence, laid the foundation for crystallography as we know it. To mark his birthday, revisit this thoughtful retrospective from Fifty Years of X-ray Diffraction, reflecting on Bragg’s lasting impact. iucr.org/publ/50yearsof…

We are seeking to appoint a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Environmental Science. Apply here: my.corehr.com/pls/trrecruit/……, and under 'Department', scroll to The School of Natural Sciences. Please recirculate. Deadline: August 15th.

Saturn with moons on July 10th. Some periods of good seeing. Titan, Rhea and other moons made a nice grouping near the planet. The southern polar region is a striking blue/cyan colour (typical when it re-emerges from years of darkness.) C14 with Uranus M camera.

"New Horizons visited Pluto 10 years ago" Alan Stern See earthsky.org/space/july-4-2…

Ten years ago, New Horizons came closer to the surface of Pluto than any spacecraft in history, flying less than 8,000 miles (13,000 km) above the surface. This enhanced-color image was taken when New Horizons was about 280,000 miles (450,000 km) away.

10 years ago today, Pluto joined the ranks of explored planets--go NASA, Go New horizons!

"Cualquier llamada a imponer reglas claras que no hiciesen retroceder nuestro mundo de derechos y libertades a la Edad Media se calificó de xenofobia y racismo por parte del equipo de imbéciles habituales". (Publicado ayer en 20 periódicos españoles). zendalibros.com/perez-reverte-…

When the U.S. almost nuked Alaska — on purpose. popsci.com/science/nuclea…

Venus this morning under great conditions - my best image to date despite the planet being fairly distant from Earth at the moment. Still hard to believe what's possible from the backyard! 24" Dobsonian and Uranus-M camera. False colour IR(sG)UV mapped to RGB.

Saturn on August 22nd. Poor to fair seeing. I was surprised the result turned out better than expected. Little of note across the planet. A nice grouping of moons is seen at the left side.

Voyager 2's last image was taken on this day in 1989. Here Neptune is on the left, and its moon Triton on the right. From this position, farther from the Sun than Neptune, most of the sunlit sides face away from the departing spacecraft. With no more targets for the optical