Maynooth University Library Cat has endured the very cold weather we have had recently, but when I met him this lunchtime he was rather hungry. So much so that he scratched my hand in his eagerness to get at the food I put out for him…
P.S. There seems to be a bit of a thaw today.
So here I am, back on campus at Maynooth University, for the first time in 2026. I took a longer route than usual to my office this morning as I thought the South Campus would look pretty with all the frost around, as indeed it was:
The temperature was well below freezing last night. Today was refuse collection day and I happened to see the crew empty my bins first thing. They struggled to do so as the lids were frozen down. I think there might be a bit of a thaw during the day, but the forecast is that the temperature will barely make it above zero and there’ll be more frost tonight. No snow is forecast for Maynooth.
I topped up the bird feeders in my garden before I left for work. On Saturday I bought a new feeder designed for smaller and nimbler birds; since then there have been several blue tits and various finches using it. I’ve got nothing against the larger birds, but they do tend to hog the other feeders. I suppose it won’t be long until crows try to wreck the new one, but for the time being it’s intact.
Anyway, I have to prepare a revision lecture for this afternoon so ahead of that I need to do a bit of revision myself…
Not entirely surprisingly, we have not published any papers at the Open Journal of Astrophysics since the last update on 27th December 2025. Of course many authors have been on holiday and there were no arXiv announcements on either Tuesday 30th December or Thursday 1st January anyway. Although we had a few papers accepted before the break, none of them appeared this past week. I dare say some of them will appear next week. We will be starting Volume 9 in 2026, as soon as there is a paper to publish in it.
There being no papers to report, instead of doing one of the regular Saturday updates, I’d like to take the opportunity afforded by this pause to thank everyone who has supported the Open Journal of Astrophysics this year – Editors, Reviewers, Authors and the excellent Library staff at Maynooth University Library – and who have made it such a bumper year. I’d also like to repeat a call for volunteers to join the Editorial Board. In 2023 we published just 50 papers, and in 2025 the figure was 213, so we have more than quadrupled in two years. How many will we publish in 2026?
Here is a graphic showing the number of new papers submitted to the Open Journal of Astrophysics since January 2020:
As the legend explains, this is only the first submission of a paper – resubmissions of revised papers are not included. You can see the thicket is getting denser all the time!
The increasing number of articles is of course very welcome indeed, but it is increasing the load on our Editorial Board many of whom are also very busy with other things. We have expanded the Board recently, but we’re always for volunteers to join the team, in any area of astrophysics. As a reminder, here are the areas we cover, corresponding to the sections of astro-ph on the arXiv:
We are looking for experienced scientists in any of these areas, and it would indeed be useful to have people who can cover a range of subjects (as some of our existing editors do). Since we don’t charge authors or readers we can not offer payment to Editors but it is nevertheless a way of providing a service to the community. If you’re interested, please get in touch either through the Open Journal website here, through a message on Mastodon here or BlueSky here.
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
From Four Quartets, ‘Little Gidding’ by T. S. Eliot.
So it’s New Year’s Day. Athbhliain faoi mhaise dhaoibh!
For me this brings the festive season to an end. I’ve been eating and drinking too much for the last week as one is supposed to. Last night I brought in the new year with a dish of roast duck and the last of the Christmas vegetables. I think I’ll be buying any sprouts and parsnips for a while. When the iron tongue of midnight told twelve, I had a glass of excellent Irish Whiskey in the form of Clonakilty Single Pot Still (46%). It has been a most enjoyable week, but heightened level of self-indulgence has been rather exhausting, and I’ll be taking things a bit easier for a few days before I go back to work on Monday. It’s hard work being a glutton.
Anyway, I thought I’d mention a few things looking forward to the New Year.
January will, as usual, be dominated by examinations, and especially the marking thereof. The first examination for which I am responsible is on January 12th. The examination, incidentally, will be held in the Glenroyal Hotel in Maynooth as the Sports Hall on campus – usually a major exam venue – is out of commission due to building work.
I have a couple of writing deadlines, in addition to having to correct the examinations, so it will be a busy January.
Then February sees the start of a new semester. I’ll be teaching Particle Physics again. I was a bit surprised to be asked to teach this again, as I was filling last year in for our resident particle physicist who was on sabbatical. I’m glad to be able to continue with it given the work I put in to do it last time. My other module is Computational Physics which I have taught at Maynooth every year since 2018, apart from 2024 when I was on sabbatical. This time, however, I will have to think hard about how to deal with the use of generative AI in the coursework.
Will I get to teach any astrophysics or cosmology at Maynooth before I retire? That’s looking very unlikely. I think it’s probable that the new academic year, starting in September, will find me teaching the same modules as last year.
The year ahead will also see the first data release (DR1) from the European Space Agency’s Euclid Mission. The date for that will be October 21st 2026. This is a hard deadline. There’s a huge amount of work going on within the Euclid Consortium to extract as much science as possible from the observations so far before the data becomes public, but you’ll have to wait until October to find out more!
This reminds me that I forgot to share this nice image from Euclid that was released just before Christmas.
Once upon a time, WordPress used to send an email about the year’s blog statistics, etc, but it stopped doing that some time ago. I checked this morning, however, and learned that traffice on the blog in 2025 was up by 2.6% since 2024. I’m not sure how meaningful this is, because there is so much scraping going on these days. That figure doesn’t include the people who get posts via email or RSS or via other platforms such as the Fediverse.
While I’m on about social media I’ll mention a stat about my Bluesky account. I joined Bluesky in 2023 when I abandoned Xitter. As of today I have 8,078 BlueSky followers, which is more than I ever had on X, and with far higher levels of engagement and much friendlier interactions.
I’m also on Mastodon, although with a much smaller following (1.4k). This blog also has a separate existence on Mastodon here. I very much like the federated structure of Mastodon (which, incidentally, accords with my view of how academic publishing should be configured) and am a bit disappointed that it doesn’t seem to have caught on as much as it should.
That disappointment pales into insignificance, however, with the outrage I feel that my employer – along with most other universities – persists in using Xitter. Touting for trade in a far-right propaganda channel is no way for a institution of higher education to behave. You can read my views on this matter here.
And finally there’s the Open Journal of Astrophysics. The year ahead will see the 10th anniversary of our first ever publication – on an experimental prototype platform, long before we moved to Scholastica. It will be next Monday before we resume publishing, starting Volume 9. Which author(s) will be the first to get their final versions on arXiv in 2026? Stay tuned to find out!
Just a quick note to point out that the Winter Solstice in the Northern hemisphere happens today, Sunday 21st December 2025, at 15.03 UT (GMT).
In Dublin, sunrise yesterday (20th December) was at 8.37 am and sunset at 4.07 pm, while today the sunrise was at 8.38 am and sunset at 4.08 pm. Both sunrise and sunset happen later tomorrow than today, so the Solstice marks neither the latest sunrise nor the earliest sunset. We have to wait until January for the latest sunrise (8.40am) and the earliest sunset (4.06pm) actually happened over a week ago. The interval between the two events will, however, be about 2 seconds longer tomorrow than today; and yesterday the gap was about 4 seconds longer than today. Taking a day to be the interval between sunrise and sunset, today is the shortest.
For a full explanation of this, see this older Winter Solstice post.
P.S. In the Southern Hemisphere this is of course the summer solstice. In Australia it was marked by the ritual of a victory in the Ashes against England.
I’ve just returned to the office after delivering my last teaching session of 2025 (a tutorial on Differential Equations and Complex Analysis). I’m up to date with all my grading too, so I’m done with teaching for 2025.
Yesterday we had our Physics Department Christmas Celebration, which was very enjoyable. We went to a restaurant in Maynooth (The Avenue) and afterwards to a local pub (Brady’s). I didn’t stay out too late, though, because I had teaching today and I’m too old for that sort of thing. I got up quite early this morning, actually, although I have to admit it took even longer than usual for effective brain functioning to commence…
I was planning to go home directly after my tutorial and finish a few small jobs in my study, but I don’t particularly want to get drenched so I think I’ll finish them here on campus and hope that the current deluge passes soon…
Walking home through Maynooth this evening, the streets filled with partying students, I was reminded of this:
It’s the central part of the triptych Das letzte Gericht (The Last Judgment) by Hieronymus Bosch. The medium is oil on oak panel and it measures 164 x 127 cm. The original work is in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
The figures at the top, looking down on the chaos, are clearly identifiable as members of academic staff, while those below are students. I’m sure that if Christmas jumpers had been invented in 1486, when the work is thought to have been completed, Bosch would have painted a few in…
I saw Maynooth University Library Cat on the way to my office this morning. Most students I saw were heading in the opposite direction, in their Christmas jumpers, to pubs, or at least to queue outside them as they weren’t yet open. I think it will be a quiet day on campus, if not in town. Such is the Maynooth Student Xmas I blogged about yesterday.
Anyway, as you can see, Séamus was looking a bit disgruntled, though as usual he was receptive to a stroke or two and a head scratch. It had been raining overnight and such food as was in his dish had turned to mush and was in need of replacement. At least his water bowl was full.
The week ahead is the last week of the teaching term at Maynooth and, since I don’t have any sessions scheduled for Friday 19th December, I will finish on Thursday 18th and take the Friday off. I don’t think there’ll be many people – either staff or students – around on Friday anyway.
Tomorrow (Monday) is the infamous “Student Xmas” in Maynooth where many undergraduates spend the day getting drunk rather than attending lectures or tutorials. Many start drinking in the morning and carry on until the pubs close in the early hours. I wouldn’t mind this excess too much, but the town is usually in a terrible mess on Tuesday morning, with fast food containers, broken bottles and vomit littering the streets. I have a lecture at 2pm on Monday (tomorrow) which will go ahead and a telecon at 4pm. After those I’ll be making my way home and keeping well out of it until I have to navigate a passage through the debris on Tuesday morning.
Two pubs, Brady’s amd The Roost promote this pre-Chrtistmas celebration vigorously on social media. I imagine their takings are substantial. I wonder if they – or indeed the Student’s Union – pay a little to help clear up the aftermath?
On Tuesday I have three lectures, but one of them (at 11am) will be the final class test for Differential Equations and Complex Analysis so there’s little for me to do but sit there, invigilating. I have promised to get the answers corrected and returned before the break so I’ll have to do them by Thursday, the date of the last tutorial. Our Department Christmas Celebration is on the afternoon of Wednesday 17th, so I’ll have to fit the grading in on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.
The other two lectures on Tuesday are Engineering Mathematics, followed by another on Wednesday. I was going to use one of the Tuesday slots for the final class test for this module, but a number of students asked me to postpone it because they anticipate being hung over. I don’t mind but the only available time with a suitable room is Thursday, so they won’t get their marks until after the holiday, for which I feel no need to apologise. It’s good to have the three lecture slots because I missed an hour last week because of the power cut owing to Storm Bram.
The weather is rather strange today, as a result of Storm Bram which is approaching from the South. The storm is bringing warm air with it, so the temperature is around 15°C which is very mild for December. The prevailing winds are usually westerly or south-westerly.
Heavy rain fell overnight, especially in the South. It’s clearer now and the winds are starting to pick up. Although Maynooth is relatively sheltered we’re still expecting gusts up to 100 km/h. As a precaution, the large tent which is usually situated outside the John Hume building has been dismantled to stop it blowing away.
Campus remains open and lectures are going ahead as normal.
At least mine are…
UPDATE: 4.25pm. I spoke to soon. I have a teaching session between 2pm and 4pm on Tuesdays; I usually take a break halfway through, as I did this afternoon. Chatting with some students in the interval we noted the wind was picking up and discussed the possibility of a power cut. We obviously tempted fate, as no sooner had we resumed for the second half when all the power went off. It came on intermittently a few times, but at 3.30pm I called off the lecture. It was too dark to see the blackboard and no other AV equipment was working. When I got back to the Physics Department, where the power was also off, as it appeared to be for the whole campus, a colleague who lives nearby told me that our area of Maynooth still had power. So I headed home, via Dunnes (which has a generator) to buy a few things. As I walked through Maynooth some lights were on, some were off. The worst affected area seemed to be to the north-west and around campus. Anyway, I’m home safely and can continue working here as long as the power stays on.
P.S. The storm is named after Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, who was born in Dublin.
In the Dark 