Introducing Bad Astronomy: The Video Series!

I am very pleased to announce a new video series I’m doing! My Benevolent Overlords here at Slate and I are producing a weekly news-ish astronomy video called—and this was their idea—“Bad Astronomy.” The plan is to put out one every Monday based on a recent bit of cosmic news (usually but not necessarily based on something I’ve written about in the past week or so).

Here's the first episode: “How to Survive a Close Encounter With a Monster Black Hole”:

This episode was based on an article I wrote late last year. Jim Festante at Slate did a great job putting the video together—I’ve done some video editing on my own, and it’s some form of magic I could never quite grasp. I’m really happy Jim's doing all the heavy lifting in that area; the graphics are great! Jeffrey Bloomer edits the script, too.

This was fun to work on (literally: I record the audio with a blanket over my head to reduce echo, so it’s like being in a pillow fort, though with less ventilation). And I’ll add that this is all part of an experiment (together with Crash Course Astronomy, my column for Sen.com, and another secret project I’m just looking into right now) to see if I can squeeze 25 hours of work into a day.

I’ll let you know. Maybe I can move to Mars; that’ll buy me an extra half hour.

Anyway, let me know what you think! And stay tuned. Another one is coming your way next week.