by @carlwillis.bsky.social
Feed for amateur nuclear physics & radiation hobby projects, home experiments, educational demos, equipment for sale, and related discussion. Tag #HobbyNuke or ☢️fun to add posts.
Carl Willis The UNM "Experience Nuclear Engineering 2026" summer camp was a blast. Among many other hands-on activities, high-school students operated the Lobo Fusor fusion device, a state-registered accelerator that produces 2E+5 neutrons per second and can make radioisotopes in small quantities. ☢️fun
Carl Willis Cosmic ray tracks in a CdTe hybrid pixel detector (Advacam) at 37000 feet, including a nice #fission or spallation "star". Just wish I had a bigger detector! I will put a few more event images from this flight into the thread below 👇 #NukeSky ☢️fun
allRadioactive I recently visited the Berlin Natural History Museum which has this amazing T-REX skull and it appears to be pretty radioactive! What a find! I wouldn’t mind having one of those in my living room 😃 🦖 #nukesky #hobbynuke #radioactivity #dinosaurs #fossil #radiation #nuclear #minerals
Carl Willis A pleasant morning today at the DeLongchamps and Red Bluff uranium mines near Pyramid Lake in Nevada with Taylor Wilson. Both were small producers in the 1950s and '60s and offer nice specimens of autunite and radiation-darkened quartz phenocrysts. ☢️fun
Carl Willis Gingersnap is home and ready to #chonk out after getting treated for hyperthyroidism with iodine-131. His head reads about 10 mR/h at 10 cm. Not great, not terrible, as they say. ☢️fun
Carl Willis Introducing the #HobbyNuke feed, a way to keep up with the amateur / avocational / student nuclear physics community on BlueSky--focusing on experiments, demos, projects, & gear (toys). To submit posts to the feed, tag posts with #HobbyNuke or ☢️fun (I will add you to the approved list). #NukeSky
Carl Willis Another December highlight: 12-year-old Aidan McMillan's hobby Farnsworth fusor in Dallas, producing around 150000 neutrons / second from deuterium fusion, built over three years of effort. He has great mentorship, especially regarding safety, which is obviously important for kids. #HobbyNuke
Carl Willis F-18 is widely used in medical PET imaging. I ran a gamma spec on a discarded F-18 vial (F-18 all decayed away, no activity measurable on a Geiger counter), and the traces of radioactive Re, Co, Cr, and Tc point to a variety of proton reactions on W, Fe, and Mo in the cyclotron target! ☢️fun
Carl Willis For sale: Polimaster PM1703GN PRD. Working fine (both gamma & neutron response). This device uses both CsI and LiI scintillator modules and reads in roentgen units for gamma and counts/sec for neutrons. Has data logging abilities. $200 OBO. #HobbyNuke
Carl Willis Another nucleus explodin' in the CdTe Advacam Minipix at 38,000 feet from #cosmic rays. See downthread for the corresponding data extracted & plotted w Matplotlib. ☢️fun #physics #fission
Carl Willis The UNM NE Department is hosting a FREE residential summer camp July 20-26 for HS students. See link in attached flyer for details. #Nuclear #Engineering @unm.edu @unmengineering.bsky.social #NukeSky ☢️fun
allRadioactive A pretty spicy Cs-137 Spark Gap tube! Unfortunately all the markings have rubbed off so I’m unable to identify it but based on the high doserate, I’m guessing the original activity was 5uCi! If anyone has info on this tube, let me know! #hobbynuke #nukesky #radioactivity #nuclear #radiation #cs137
allRadioactive Gamma Spectroscopy of dried Mushrooms While grocery shopping, I found some dried Polish mushrooms and decided to scan them with my spectrometer. After a few hours, a clear 662 keV peak appeared—Cs-137 from Chernobyl fallout! #hobbynuke #chernobyl #nuclear #radiation #physics #fallout #spectroscopy
Carl Willis For sale: Exploranium GR-100 PRD, working fine but heavily used, with scratches on the screen! The GR-100 is the gamma-only version of this detector (though it has a neutron indicator lamp). It's a little CsI scintillator with dosimetric readout and data logging. $150 OBO. #HobbyNuke
Simon Obrusnik Trying out the new #HobbyNuke I am currently trying to replicate Curie's Chemistry for a huge YouTube project. (1) Bi/Po Sulfide with Copper complex from separation scheme (2). (3) First experiments from separation scheme (4). All in the lab from @erikstrub.bsky.social
Filip M. Jankowski Went on a uranium hunting trip and found some amazing and hot samples! #hobbynuke
allRadioactive Selling a Radon meter by Airthings Price: 120 Euro + shipping with DHL from Germany The meter is in pretty much excellent condition and is just a few months old. Perfect for anyone who has collection of uranium minerals or radium items. PM for more details 😉 #hobbynuke #radon #radiation #nuclear
🧊 Found some uranium sea glass with @physgun1.bsky.social last night! Would highly recommend beachcombing at night with a powerful UV light. #hobbynuke #nukesky
🧊 anyone else like full-size digital meters? #hobbynuke
🧊 depleted uranium metal #hobbynuke