Spent all day driving through gorgeous mountains towards home, now trying to catch up on Artemis stuff so I can talk about it at stupid-o-clock in the morning on live Saskatchewan radio tomorrow morning (I'm baaack. Apparently).

Thanks to @nprofile1q... for a great summary of the closest approach!

The absolutely coolest detail (to me): the astronauts could SEE flashes from meteors hitting the surface?!! From 4,000km away?! (And they want to build a moon base???) Lots to think about, wow.

Have to try to start playing tetris to pack my car with all the stuff we acquired in the last few months of travel (and decide if it's worth mailing anything to ourselves instead). And make decisions about weather and the long drive to Sask.

Given everything else that's happening, everyone needs a few more absurdly gorgeous night sky photos I took 2 weeks ago in the Tekapo Dark Sky Reserve, in the best night skies I've ever seen in my life (despite all the satellites. Sigh.)

I very much appreciate the way they wrote this: "SpaceX, which recently reported two Starlink satellite failures that created new space debris, yesterday accused Amazon and its launch partner Arianespace of negligence that 'needlessly and significantly increases risk to other operational systems and inhabited spacecraft.'”

It's too bad that 2 giant evil companies hating each other does not result in anything cancelling out, and will probably just cause more problems...

I'm still very far away from my goats, but I got to see some cows today (and some flowers!)

Over the last few months, I experienced the following seasons in this order:
-Saskatchewan winter (very cold and snowy)
-coastal BC winter (cool and rainy)
-New Zealand summer (hot to warm)
-New Zealand fall (warm to cool)
-coastal BC spring (warm)
-in a couple of days: Sask early spring/thaw season (cold to cool, rain and snow)

Weird.

I just keep forgetting about the moon mission (too much awful US-related news, and also too much life stuff happening). Looks like they're actually doing it!

The part that I'm actually excited about is the perspective of looking back at Earth from the Moon. That is COOL. I spent some time my last night in NZ looking up at the Moon, thinking about astronauts, and also tilting my head to try to understand why the moon looked upside-down to me from NZ!

Goodbye, New Zealand!! It's been a truly incredible few weeks, I have learned so much. Thank you to everyone who taught me and everyone who made this trip possible. #ProfSamLectureTour

*Secret hilarious project* is now live!

Astronomy has a fine tradition of April Fool's Day papers, where there are real calculations, but perhaps on a very silly topic.

Compilation of this year's Acta Prima Aprilia papers here: https://www.actaprimaaprilia.com/2026-issue

Just turned in my University of Canterbury office key and got my last flat white from the really great place on campus. Time to submit the *hilarious secret project,* do one more Radio NZ interview tomorrow, and enjoy my last 3 days in NZ before I go back to "spring" (very loosely defined in Saskatchewan)

Just submitted my Reflect Orbital reply comment to the FCC. And I managed to not throw my laptop out a window.

Reflect Orbital is a fucking terrible idea that will cause real physical harm with no benefit whatsoever.

Pew pew pew Kessler Syndrome here we come! (Ok yes, we're already in Kessler Syndrome, this is Kessler Syndrome: small collisions happen more and more frequently)