astro will
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  • what does an exoplanet look like?

    what does an exoplanet look like?

    Large telescopes have allowed us to take unresolved pictures of exoplanets around a few dozen nearby stars, in many different colors of light. What do they look like?

    October 31, 2025
  • the first week of august, remembering july, looking towards september

    the first week of august, remembering july, looking towards september

    all work and no play makes summer a bummer

    August 9, 2025
  • we used the billion dollar observatory wrong, on purpose

    we used the billion dollar observatory wrong, on purpose

    this march, i published my fifth first-author research paper in The Astronomical Journal (not my first fifth-author paper, which i think is yet to come). i was required by my collaborators to use a title prefix to indicate this paper is part of a series published by our team, so in a small act of…

    May 26, 2025
  • into the biosphere

    into the biosphere

    Well, really, it’s the Biosphere 2.

    March 16, 2025
  • nircam coronagraphs

    nircam coronagraphs

    I was invited out to arizona this past weekend to attend the ultimate (read, last planned) NIRCam Team Meeting. NIRCam is the Near Infrared Camera, an instrument aboard JWST that is responsible for many of the awe inspiring images you’ve seen from the observatory. There, I got to see a physical copy of the sapphire…

    March 4, 2025
  • a sword and sorcery story out now

    a sword and sorcery story out now

    check out my flash fiction piece “against the witch-prince of emdal” in issue 3 of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine

    December 31, 2024
  • expect the expected | my latest first author paper on af lep b

    expect the expected | my latest first author paper on af lep b

    in my latest paper (published on the pre-print site arXiv today, and by the Astronomical Journal in a few weeks), i took a closer look at a nearby, young, gas giant exoplanet.

    November 12, 2024
  • astronomy communication in the age of slop

    astronomy communication in the age of slop

    i’ve been wading through the increasingly sloppy internet for most of my adult life. one of the places that i always seem to encounter low effort content is in astronomy “communication”

    October 15, 2024
  • aurora visible in baltimore, oct. 10th ’24

    big cme from oct. 8th has finally reached us on earth, and while i didn’t expect to see much from all the way down in maryland, we walked out into the park to have a check. we were able to see red (h-alpha emission) and green ([oiii] emission). phone cameras can’t beat those with tripods…

    October 10, 2024
  • lego fondor haulcraft build

    lego fondor haulcraft build

    last month, while i was recovering from my wisdom teeth removal, i wanted something relatively low impact to do; so i built a custom designed star wars lego

    October 4, 2024
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astro will

c 2023, William O. Balmer