Meredith Rawls

@merrdiff.bsky.social

4570 Followers 864 Following

Astronomer at UW, data pipeline wrangler for Rubin Observatory, satellite mitigation leader via IAU CPS SatHub, mom, violist, Ballardite (Seattle), family cargo e-bike evangelist, Episcopalian, etc. Opinions all mine

Map of bike and bus routes between Stoup Brewery in Ballard on 52nd and Interbay Stadium. You can walk a ways to the D line and take it pretty close to the stadium. Or you can bike way out of your way east to the Fremont bridge or way out your way west to the Ballard locks (via freaking Shilshole). Either way you land on Gilman Ave southbound and the last couple dicey blocks on Dravus eastbound. It's almost like the Ballard Bridge and the obvious direct route on 15th needs proper bike infrastructure and the D bus line should come more often.
A car stops at a new stop sign at 19th Ave NW and NW 67th St. During the school year, the long block south of here is designated a School Street closed to thru traffic.
Big USPS van parked in the no parking zone in front of a permanent street closed healthy street. Neighbors have put out "stop for pedestrian in crosswalk" signs because vehicles often ignore the 2 way stop here.
Selfie of a very unshowered adult who has been in a car all day (me) and her tall 8yo kiddo both smiling in a lovely treescape backdrop. We are at Camp Huston and the kiddo is wearing a Camp Cross shirt and a purple sun hat.
The photo I took to confirm I was seeing aurora and not weird sky glow. Trees in the foreground, a lake with hills in the background, and the sky is lit up with green and purple curtains so much that the water looks slightly teal
Pillar with map of a strip of waterfront
3yo riding a bike on a clearly marked sufficiently wide separated bike path that has a separate pedestrian path nearby and it's an idyllic waterfront scene with a whimsical bird kite and trees and boats
Route map for the shuttle bus showing its stops. It goes from Market/15th to the main Golden Gardens parking lot just north of the park entrance gates, with lots of stops along the way every couple blocks. It connects to buses D, 17X, 40, and 44.
Brownie Girl Scout smiles and holds up a picture she made of the approx first quarter moon on a blue sky background paper
Very full bike rack with a delightful collection of family cargo bikes on a sunny blue sky day and trees and such
Two kids in the stands watching a soccer game
Two kids in the stands watching a soccer game
Ginormous truck parked near a gym entrance and adjacent to a bike rack with 2 family cargo bikes parked. The truck is positioned so the bike closest to the truck (mine) can't even be seen over the grill. My very tall 8yo is also standing by the bikes and someone driving the truck could maybe see the top of her head.
Kids play on the waterfront pier jellyfish playground climber which is every bit as amazing and crowded and sunny as it looks
Extremely full bike parking cage in a parking garage
Freshly set up cones with signs reading street closed and play street next to a school street road closed barrier
Man in yellow rain jacket and 3 kids in a rainy school access sidewalk area
Photo of last fall's play street with a sign and folks visiting a tent in the background. Text reads: Play Street on the School Street after school on Friday May 29 Like spending time outside with friends? What about free stuff? This Play Street is for you! To celebrate a successful Walk/Bike/Roll to School Month, the FOSB Traffic Safety Committee is turning the School Street on 19th Ave NW (from NW 65th St to NW 67th St) into a Play Street. We will have monitors on both ends to keep people safe and allow neighbors and emergency vehicles access as needed. The gates between the playground and this stretch of 19th Ave NW will be open from 3:45-6pm on Friday May 29. If you biked to school, your bike will already be here to ride around!
A small group with 5 adults and 2 kids outside in a desert landscape, as one of the adults points at the massive concrete tube that goes 4km into the distance
Selfie with my youngest who is on a carousel horse, with my aunt taking a photo in the background
Same intersections but they have crammed more SCL trucks in there and there are literally more than 6 you cannot see behind these ones
Construction site with 6 trucks blocking all possible access points of NW 51st St at 15th Ave NW. 3 of the truck are SCL orange work trucks.
Same bike, now outside, at 5300 miles, with a "Look Out for Each Other" orange sign mounted on a fence in the background
Tern GSD display showing 5296 miles and the little service wrench icon, please rest assured I have a tuneup scheduled and my brake pads aren't quite shot yet
Waving my hands on a stage lit with neon Saturns and rocket ships
Selfie of my husband and me at our Alma mater, Harvey Mudd College. The campus itself is delightfully walkable and bikeable! It's his 20th reunion; I am 2 years younger.
Selfie while biking up 17th with three kids and three adults besides me, plus a not-pictured preschooler along on my husband's bike, and a not pictured additional adult volunteer.
Selfie while riding a bike on the Burke-Gilman Trail. I'm wearing a bright tie dye shirt, sunglasses, and a helmet and it's a blue sky sunny day. Behind me are my older kid riding her bike and my husband riding his bike. (You can't tell but he also has our younger kid on the back of his bike.)
Two kids heading counterclockwise on the green lake outer cycle track. One is older and cycling confidently, and one is younger and weaving left and right a bit with only one foot on a pedal as the other foot kicks off the ground. Paint and flex posts delineate the car lanes from the bike lanes, and one of the flex posts has been mowed down by a car. It's a perfect partly cloudy Seattle spring evening.
Back of a Volvo charter bus that is painted something between orange and red and says "BlaBlaCar"
Fingernail crescent Earth suspended in space, continents and clouds clearly visible, with a Venus dot far in the background, and moonshine illuminating the night
Smiling selfie in a blue jacket and silver bike helmet with pretty blooming cherry trees and late afternoon sunlight shining through at the UW quad. You can see a few of the random items attached to my cargo bike also.
Cruise ship docked at San Diego pier
Screenshot of a portion of an article from pcmag.com University of Regina astronomy professor Samantha Lawler also noted that existing Starlink satellites still remain bright enough to interfere with telescopes. In a post on Mastodon, she was also doubtful SpaceX could prevent the orbiting data center satellites from producing light pollution since they'll likely feature even larger solar panels. SpaceX says it'll "coordinate with federal agencies to study atmospheric effects of reentries and in the next the fuckweasels vehemently deny that environmental laws apply to them at all," she added in her posts.
Husband and me standing in front of a ginormous telescope facility on a sunny blue sky day with other visitors milling about in the background. It's a rocky, dry, dirt gravel landscape. The telescope facility sticks out to one side with a huge white building and on the other side, further away, is a huge shiny silver dome with some teal metal components.
Map of SEA airport security checkpoints. There are 6 of them. 5 of them have General screening and 4 of them have PreCheck. One of them is in fact only PreCheck. There's also the CLEAR nonsense at a couple of them and other special options like Service Members, Spot Saver (a program that reserves you a time for general screening), Premium (whatever that means), Family (why is that a separate thing), Visitor Pass, and the new touchless variant of PreCheck which is actually kind of nice when it works since they already have my face in every database anyway AMA
More than 20 kids in the middle of a rapid ride Seattle city bus, sitting and standing. I've blocked out all the kids' faces with 😄, save my own kiddo, so the sheer joy they are radiating is not as tangible as in the original, but believe me, it's there. Many kids are giving the peace sign and there are a few adults (chaperones plus random bus riders) also present.
Three electric family cargo bikes in a preschool parking lot, each with a slightly different rear kid carrying setup, with one lone car in the background, at dusk
Federal Communications Commission 45 L Street NE Washington, DC 20554 News Media Information 202-418-0500 Internet: www.fcc.gov DA 26-113 Released: February 4, 2026 SPACE BUREAU ACCEPTS FOR FILING SPACEX'S APPLICATION FOR ORBITAL DATA CENTERS ICFS File No. SAT-LOA-20260108-00016 Comments/Petitions Due: March 6, 2026 Response to Comments/Oppositions to Petition Due: March 16, 2026 Replies to Responses/Oppositions Due: March 23, 2026 By this Public Notice, the Space Bureau (Bureau) accepts for filing and seeks comment on an application by Space Exploration Holdings, LLC (SpaceX) for a new non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) system of up to one million satellites. This satellite system will represent the "first step towards becoming a Kardashev Il-level civilization - one that can harness the Sun's full power," according to SpaceX. On January 30, 2026, SpaceX filed an application seeking authority to launch and operate a new NGSO satellite system of up to one million satellites to operate as the "Space Orbital Data Center system" (System). The System will operate at altitudes ranging from 500 km to 2,000 km and in 30 degree and sun-synchronous orbit inclinations within orbital shells spanning up to 50 km each. The proposed satellites will use high-bandwidth optical inter-satellite links and conduct telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) operations.* The Bureau seeks comment on the application and the associated requests for waiver.
Two sets of the 7 aforementioned varieties of Girl Scout cookies corresponding to one of two bakeries, Little Brownie Bakers and ABC Bakers, laid out on a cutting board so you can inspect the differences visually side by side. The lemon ones weren't included because they're wildly different and the gluten free ones weren't included because they're also very different (LBB does Toffee-Tastic and ABC does some kind of chocolate chip).
Google Maps street view screenshot from the intersection of 22nd and 58th marking the block I am talking about that should really be a pedestrian plaza and not a parking side quest
Cardboard box branded staub that says it contains "2 bols" (ceramique!) and is possibly from France but whatever get this: there is a giant black and white photo on the box and it is a person riding a bike down a perfect cobblestone alley with two legit pannier buckets full of groceries, viewed from behind, and a little mini crockpot bowl (bright red, the only color in the photo) is perched kind of where you might expect a rear light to be, exactly on the middle of the rear bike rack. I now desire every item I order that comes in a box to be pictured on said box being transported on a bike
North facing urban sky view with trees in foreground and very faint wispy green Aurora
Sculpture of a hand being bitten by a maybe lizard type creature. Not shown but the title of this work is "what not to do in the desert"
Two sisters at a table, one proclaims the new Exploremores cookie is AMAZING because it tastes just like ice cream but a cookie
Speaker at front of small conference center room with a slide that reads, Ethics of outer space isn't about personal virtue. It is about how and why we make decisions that affect the space environment.
Me at a big table with a bunch of cool people outside on a patio in pleasant Phoenix January weather
Green Lake aerial view at dusk with fireworks and other lit things in the eastern part closest to the viewer
Green aurora out a plane window with stars and wing light also visible. Slightly out of focus give me a break it's an airplane and an iPhone and you can't see the part where I'm huddling under the blanket they give you up against the window to block out stray light
Screenshot of Seattle Times headline/lede that says "Officials warn that tougher days may still be ahead" and the photo is people dealing with a giant log or tree stump or something? I had to click through to realize it was referring to flooding in the Western Washington region
Me at the bridge in Kew Gardens
Vienna Philharmonic
Slide from SpaceX titled Brightness Mitigations in Three Areas. There's lots of text, but the three top-level areas are Hardware and satellite design, Satellite operations, and Satellite position predictions.
Slide titled Brightness Probability and Cumulative Probability. It's a simulation showing that the cumulative probability of any of their 248 sats being visible is only 12%, despite the brightness sometimes being as high as mag -2 with a peak at mag 0.5 (these are bonkers bright numbers, dear alt text reader)
Summary slide titled Amazon Leo Enabling Dark and Quiet Skies. Top-level sections include System design, Deployment & operations, and Collaboration
Slide from presentation titled Constellation Mitigations. Top level points are Aggregate impact computation, Altitude to reduce constellation size, and A very challenging problem.
Line sketch image of a person with long hair looking up at a beautiful dark blue starry sky above the limb of the Earth that has a large telescope passing by in the foreground. At the top, the words "From curiosity to responsibility"
Slide titled "The US Regulatory Landscape" that summarizes the roles of the FCC, FAA, and OSC in the US pertaining to space activities.
Slide title Compliance Verification: DRAMA 4.1.1. It shows a schematic of a 3D satellite that could have various components adjusted for modeling. URL provided is https://sdup.asoc.esa.int/drama.