According to Diana MacPherson, winter has begun in Canada, and the beasts need noms:
It has been snowing here all day so the animals have been hungry. Here a blue jay chased away the chipmunk from some seeds but the chippy cheerfully found some on the deck and got snow on his snout snuffling for them. He looks like he’s smiling about it. 🙂
Robin Cornwell sent a photo of a Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus) entitled, “His Majesty,” as well as a brief story about the herd that frequents her land:
This photo is from in front of my house – he is so beautiful. I have about 15 or so regular on my property. Now that the rut is over, there are 4 or 5 bucks regularly visiting. Watching their interaction is interesting. But this guy, well, he has survived to reach his full majesty. By western conventions he is 7 points, by Eastern he is 14 points. But in all conventions, he is magnificent. It is really a privilege to be alive to see this. Can religion offer more than this? I figured that out as a child. No.
And an adorable fawn (they’re called “mule deer” because of their oversized ears):
And a special treat for astronomy buffs: our own moon (click, as always, to enlarge):
The image was taken through a 5-inch Cassegrain telescope using a Canon 70D camera filtered down to 13% of visual brightness.
The prominent crater near the top right-hand of the visible area is named for Tycho Brahe. You can clearly see the paths of ejecta thrown from the impact.
Wikipedia has the following to say about Brahe:
- “In his De nova stella (On the new star) of 1573, he refuted the Aristotelian belief in an unchanging celestial realm. His precise measurements indicated that “new stars,” (stellae novae, now known as supernovae) in particular that of 1572, lacked the parallax expected in sub-lunar phenomena, and were therefore not “atmospheric” tailless comets as previously believed, but were above the atmosphere and moon. Using similar measurements he showed that comets were also not atmospheric phenomena, as previously thought, and must pass through the supposedly “immutable” celestial spheres.[6]”
Brahe is sometimes portrayed as a bah-humbug anti-Copernican, but the truth is a bit different.
The Apollo 11 landing site is in the “Sea of Tranquillity”, roughly at the top edge of the middle of three large dark areas to the left of the image.
Northern Hemisphere viewers will notice that they have been looking at the Moon upside down all these years. Here is a tip: drinking water while standing on your head is also an infallible cure for hiccups.
His Majesty really is a beautiful looking bloke. What do the points mean, western convention 7 points and eastern convention 14 points? I’ve not herd* of that before.
*Spelled incorrectly for the awesome joke.
The joke is, we in the West can’t count as high as our Eastern counterparts. Honestly, I don’t know – and have not encountered anyone who does. If anyone happens to know, it would be nice to find out.
That first deer looks as if it’s hollow. Are you sure it’s not Chuck Testa?
Where I come from, the “points” on a red deer (Cervus elaphus scoticus) are the branches on the antlers. It’s hard to see from this photo, but presumably there are seven points on each side, fourteen in total. Since antlers are not always symmetrical, it is not unusual to find a head of, say, 11 points. Not sure how that would work in the “western convention” – 5½ points?
Some points are so small that they hardly count. I’ve been told by a stalking ghillie that to count as a point, you must be able to hang a wedding ring on it.
That makes a lot more sense. Thank you. x
I’d been thinking of writing pretty much the same.
I didn’t know the “wedding ring” convention.
Racks of antlers can be asymmetrical because of trauma to the growing antler, damage to the dead antler during a fight (the antlers die after they loose the velvet, don’t they? Or is it later, shortly before they’re shed?), or possibly asymmetrical development for some other reason. I’ve certainly seen Scottish Red Deer with antlers that are not symmetrical, but do not appear to have been traumatised. They’re not the most cooperative of beasts for counting though – this is what telephoto lenses are for.
I don’t know if it is general amongst cervids (deer, loosely), but for the Scottish deer you expect that each year that a male is sexually mature, he develops a rack with one more point on each side. So your 14-point rack would imply a beast which has been sexually mature for around 7 years. I’d expect some variation about that average though.
And looking at a big moon on the horizon while standing and bending upside down so you see it through your legs, you can erase the illusion that it is bigger when close to the horizon than it is at other times!
I’ve gotta try that. 😀
Honestly, I have a suspicion that the whole “bend over and put your head between your knees to look at the moon” thing was started by some teaching assistant hoping to get a cute coed to stick her ass in the air and maybe sneak a peak down her blouse…whether the illusion actually works or not….
b&
I don’t think that there was much particularly “bah humbug” about Brahe, he of the legendary elk/missing nose/etc!
Also I’ve been lucky enough to observe the moon through this beauty.
Great shot posted here, though, really nice. A 5 inch isn’t a huge telescope, and would love something like that myself but as I live close to central London the skies are pretty crappy with light pollution. I’ve invested in a pair of 10×50 binoculars (just enough to see some of Jupiter’s moons) but it isn’t worth picking up any better optics.
Dammit, link fail.
Try http://www.ulo.ucl.ac.uk/telescopes/fry/.
I don’t think of Tycho as being particularly “bah-humbug” either. Losing the tip of your nose in a sword fight … that’s party animal behaviour. As is dieing from a ruptured bladder at a party.
What’s this about an elk? Oh, another count on the Party Animal front.
Have we got this far without mentioning TMA-1? Or is the first rule about TMA-1 that you don’t talk about TMA-1?
Didn’t know what you were talking about with TMA-1, so I had to look it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_(Space_Odyssey)
b&
Oh dear, Ben. The receptacle for expired geek cards is by the door. The door you’re leaving through.
And that was BEFORE I went to watch the “Interstellar” film (replete with hat-tips to at least Silent Running, 2001, “There is a Tide” (text short story) and no doubt others that I’ve forgotten or missed.
Hey! I know what monoliths (monolithae? polylith? multipass?) are…I just forgot the TLA you used to refer to them.
b&
The moon picture was taken about five kilometres from the Sydney CBD. A good CLS filter works wonders.
Nice! Having visited Sydney I can say that the light pollution in London is far worse and over a much wider area…
“I don’t think that there was much particularly “bah humbug” about Brahe, he of the legendary elk/missing nose/etc!”
Indeed, Astronomy 101 students greatly enjoy hearing those stories. But Tycho actually had a sound reason for being anti Copernican. He couldn’t detect any stellar parallax which knew had to be there if the Earth went around the Sun.
Tycho’s great mistake was he didn’t appreciate how truly distant the stars were. He could measure celestial angles to a precision of a few minutes of arc, the best ever in pre-telescope days. However the nearest star system, alpha centauri has a parallax of just over 2.0 seconds of arc. Most measured parallaxes are less than 0.1 seconds of arc. Tycho had no hope.
George
Good binoculars are often a better investment than cheaper telescopes!
I haven’t taken my 8″ SCT out for a while mostly due to time and exhaustion at the end of the day when it’s dark out but I still remember the first thing I saw when I bought it 17 years ago – Saturn. I was so impressed to see Saturn’s rings! My scope needs to be manually aimed and I use its setting circles if I have the coordinates of what I want to observe after I polar align it (by hand). I’m horribly out of practice doing all that stuff so when it’s below 0 C out and I need to take off my gloves to fiddle with little knobs, I just don’t want to!
The mule deer indeed looks majestic! What a pretty animal. I’ve told this story before, but my first encounter with mule deer was in NZ where they farm them. It was raining so their ears were all laying flat to their faces. I asked my mother “what are those donkey-looking-things?” It got big laughs. My mom told the story to her friends, who accused her of “not teaching her the animals.”
Whenever I take moonshots through my telescope, I flip them after. Damn prisms that put stuff upside down! Of course, I never did put the bracket on my telescope to do some deep sky pictures and now it’s snowing. I had all summer. But it gets dark so late, I’m always too tired.
Wait.. the moon is upside down in the Southern hemisphere? Of course it should be true, but I had never thought of it.
It quite caught me, the first time I saw Orion standing on his head from an island off the coast of Tanzania. that was only 8deg South, so people seem to pick up on the environmental cue pretty fast.
Ha ha – didn’t see your comment when I replied but yeah I found that amusing also.
Northern Hemisphere! Upside down in the . . .
I remember thinking the half-moon was tipped 90 degrees when I saw it on the equator in east Africa.
When I saw Orion upside down on his head when I was in the southern hemisphere, I found that pretty funny. It was like he was being rolled for his change.
lol!
Haven’t been much south of the equator.
The moon is upside down because of the telescope’s prism.
Love the snuffly snowy snout – and the mule deer. Our local birds and squirrels were very appreciative of the newly-filled birdfeeder yesterday.
And I thought Baihu’s nose was cold last night!
b&
Another day of lovely photos at WEIT!
I love to see Diana’s chipmunk pictures pop up and today’s with snow on his nose gave a good chuckle! Since I don’t have a chipmunk in my yard, getting to share yours is the next best option.
🙂
I always enjoy the Reader’s photos. These are great. Especially like the small creatures in the snow. : )
Great photos again! I see what you mean about the chippy’s smile, Diane M. 🙂
*Diana!*
🙂 I didn’t even notice.
I know – you can see his little pink lips!
I noticed! So cute. 🙂 And the jay is outstanding.
I think that Jay is one of the best photos you’ve submitted Diana. The cool blue plumage against the bluish background and snow, the light fluff of the white downy feathers and the light flakes floating about all work so well together. It evokes beauty and brrrrr.
That buck is truly magnificent! Such a powerful animal as the thick neck attests. We only have black-tailed deer around here, and with the thick forest, they stay well hidden; but when I spot one, I can’t help but feel lucky and pleased.
Thanks!
Robin, I don’t know which I like better–your deer or your property!
What an eye-grabbing moon photo! I always love the way the relief shows up at the border of the dark side!
It’s a Terminator. Living flesh over a metal endoskeleton.