Climbing the cosmic distance ladder: launching an instagram

I have been collaborating for many years with a long-time personal friend and polymath, Tanya Klowden, on a popular book on astronomy tentatively entitled “Climbing the cosmic distance ladder“, which was initially based on a public lecture I have given on this topic for many years, but which we have found to be a far richer story than what I was aware of when I first gave those lectures. We had previously released a sample chapter on this blog back in 2020. The project had stalled for a few years for a number of reasons (including some pandemic-related issues); however, we are now trying to get it back on track. One of the steps we are taking to do so is to launch an Instagram account for the book, in which we aim to make some regular posts (tentatively on a weekly basis) on astronomical tidbits that we have encountered in the course of researching our book project. Tanya has started this series by sharing her experiences on comet-hunting in Hampstead Heath, following in the footsteps of the legendary comet-hunting 19th century astronomer Caroline Herschel (who, together with her brother William Herschel, will make a significant appearance in the “seventh rung” chapter of our book). I plan to follow up with an instagram post of my own in the next few days.