Right now the astronomy world is basically on lock-down due to the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. Most observatories are closed, universities have gone to a distance learning mode, and astronomers are spending nearly all our time on Zoom - or as in my case, taking care of my kids and occasionally on Zoom!

Since I recently posted the final video in my AAS 235 series on the ‘ol Astro Vlog, and people clearly are in need of things to watch to pass the time during our international social isolation period, here are the videos from all three of the talks I gave at AAS 235 back in January!

Stellar Astrophysics from the First Year(s) of TESS

My all-out favorite of the three, this was a 10-min talk aimed at all astronomers, highlighting the amazing potential for TESS to study (and maybe even revolutionize) our understanding of variable stars!

SETI in Spatio-Temporal Surveys

A new “Special Session” was organized this year, focused on SETI and technosignature research. I’m very excited to see this area of astronomy grow in the next decade, and was pleased that the session was so well attended! My talk was focused on the recent paper I posted about using big data optical surveys in astronomy to develop new methods for technosignature research!

and as a bonus, if you’re keen on this kind of work I talked more with David Kipping from the Cool Worlds lab (and YouTube channel) about SETI during AAS as well! Video Here!

Flares in Kepler and TESS

This final video was actually my first presentation at the conference. I held the video back for a while because the audio is terrible! But that’s not (only) because I’m not a professional videographer, the audio was horrid even in person! It was early in the conference, and we had some A/V troubles… Now, this happens from time to time, and to be honest I’m always impressed with how smoothly the AAS conferences go. Talks very rarely aren’t available on the presenter laptops, microphones are available, tech support is quick to respond to any issues… Being a professional scientist means sometimes you just have to give your the best you can with a hot mic!

This talk was about the paper (currently under referee review) we wrote on the opportunity to study long-term flare activity using the combination of Kepler and TESS. It’s a unique area for variable star research that I’m hoping we can utilize more in creative ways!

It means a LOT to me if you subscribe to my YouTube channel!