Stars Over Easter Island (2009 Oct 12)

[jerbil]

One interesting consideration about the statues is, I read some time ago, that all the statues face inland and not towards the Pacific Ocean.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091012.html

[redwhine]

Pictured above, a large stone statue appears to ponder the distant Large Magellanic Cloud before a cloudy sky that features the bright stars Canopus and Sirius.

No it doesn't (...unless it's using a mirror!) The scene described is over the statue's left shoulder (...and it is not a chameleon).

[neufer]

Pictured above, a large stone statue appears to ponder the distant Large Magellanic Cloud before a cloudy sky that features the bright stars Canopus and Sirius.

No it doesn't (...unless it's using a mirror!) The scene described is over the statue's left shoulder (...and it is not a chameleon).

It only states that he appears to ponder the Large Magellanic Cloud;
when, in fact, we all know that he is actually pondering something quite different.
(Appearances can be deceiving.)

[neufer]

One interesting consideration about the statues is, I read some time ago, that all the statues face inland and not towards the Pacific Ocean.

<<The moai or mo‘ai are chiefly the 'living faces' of deified ancestors carved from rock on the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) between the years 1250 and 1500. The statues still gazed inland across their clan lands when Europeans first visited the island.>>

<<Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui) is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands.
It is 3,510 km west of continental Chile at its nearest point and 2,075 km east of Pitcairn.>>

• ----------------------------
  Solipsism, n. [L. solus alone + ipse self.]
  1. Philosophy. the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.
  2. extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption.
  ----------------------------

<<The first recorded European contact with the island was on April 5 (Easter Sunday), 1722 when Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen visited the island for a week and estimated there were 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants on the island; at that time all the moai were standing. In 1774, British explorer James Cook visited Easter Island, he reported the statues as being neglected with some having fallen down. In 1825, the British ship HMS Blossom visited and reported no standing statues.

In December 1862, Peruvian slave raiders struck Easter Island. Violent abductions continued for several months, eventually capturing or killing around 1500 men and women, about half of the island's population. A dozen islanders managed to return from their slavery, but brought with them smallpox and started an epidemic, which reduced the island's population to the point where some of the dead were not even buried. Contributing to the chaos were violent clan wars with the remaining people fighting over the newly available lands of the deceased, bringing further famine and death among the dwindling population. The first Christian missionary, Eugène Eyraud, brought tuberculosis to the island in 1867 which took a quarter of the island's remaining population of 1,200. In 1871 the missionaries evacuated all but 171 Rapanui to the Gambier islands. Those who remained were mostly older men. Six years later, there were just 111 people living on Easter Island, and only 36 of them had any offspring.>>

----------------------------

<<First Interstellar Radio Message (IRM), "Arecibo Message", was transmitted in Nov, 1974 from Arecibo Radar Telescope. IRMs Cosmic Call, Teen Age Message, and Cosmic Call 2 were transmitted in 1999, 2001, and 2003 from Eupatoria Planetary Radar. Directed by Douglas Vakoch at SETI in Mountain View, the Interstellar Message Composition Project is charged with sending messages to extraterrestrials that convey basic scientific or mathematical principles, as well as human altruism. Vackoch's idea is to send a message of reciprocal altruism because hopefully any extraterrestrials would reciprocate with a reply back.>>

[Tilt]

.
.
There's a lot of folks down at the island
That follow that astrology
Some got a chart of the Heavens
And some got a fancy degree
But me, I’ve got a pickup
And I drive it like the Fourth of July
And that's where I seen the vision
When it fell right outta the sky!

It said, “Follow…

Follow the Southern Cross
Leave your luck in Mexico
There ain't no way to get lost
‘Cause there ain't no place to go!”

So I bought me a ticket to Texas
And I hopped on a plane to Peru
I met a little lady from Chile
And she fed me a tropical root
Now I'm down in Tierra del Fuego
And nothin' aroun’ me is right
I think I’ve got a case of lumbago
But it's better than the Northern Lights!

I’ve got to follow…

Follow the Southern Cross
Leave your luck in Mexico
There ain't no way to get lost
‘Cause there ain't no place to go!

(HORNS CUT LOOSE)

So I paddled out to Easter Island
‘Bout as fast as I could go
I saw an albatross on the horizon
And the Stone Heads all in a row
I found the secret of navigation
And the Mystery of the Milky Way
Now I'm livin' in the constellations
Tell me what more I can say?

You’ve got to follow…

Follow the Southern Cross
And leave your luck in Mexico
There ain't no way to get lost
‘Cause there ain't no place to go!


WOOOooooo !


(MORE HORNS… and Fade)









“Southern Cross”
Steve Cash & John Dillon
The Car Over The Lake Album (1975)
The Ozark Mountain Daredevils
.
.

[Star*Hopper]

With the APOD caption's simple elaboration on the mysterious Easter Island statues, I wonder why the author(s) don't mention that they have a name - 'moai' - which were created by the Rapanui civilization. There are 887 of them at present, tho many others are known to have existed. Almost as fascinating in their variety are the platforms known as 'ahu' they were mounted upon.

[neufer]

With the APOD caption's simple elaboration on the mysterious Easter Island statues,
I wonder why the author(s) don't mention that
they have a name - 'moai' - which were created by the Rapanui civilization.

• . Or was it?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

• • Twelfe Night, or, What you will.
    (Folio 1, 1623) Act II, scene V
  Maluolio : I may command where I adore,
  . but silence like a Lucresse knife:
  . With bloodlesse stroke my heart doth gore,
  . M.O.A.I. doth sway my life.
  
  Fabian : A fustian riddle.
  
  Sir Toby : Excellent Wench, say I.
  
  Maluolio : M.O.A.I. doth sway my life. Nay
  . but first let me see, let me see, let me see.
  
  Fabian : What dish a poyson has she drest him?
  
  Sir Toby : And with what wing the stallion checkes at it?
  
  Maluolio : I may command, where I adore: Why shee may
  . command me: I serue her, she is my Ladie. Why this is
  . euident to any formall capacitie. There is no
  . obstruction in this, and the end: What should
  . that Alphabeticall position portend, if I could make
  . that resemble something in me? Softly, M.O.A.I.
  
  Sir Toby : O I, make vp that, he is now at a cold sent.
  
  Fabian : Sowter will cry vpon't for all this,
  . though it bee as ranke as a Fox.
  
  Maluolio : M. Maluolio, M. why that begins my name.
  
  Fabian : Did not I say he would worke it out,
  . the Curre is excellent at faults.
  
  Maluolio : M. But then there is no consonancy in the sequell
  . that suffers vnder probation: A. should follow, but O. does.
  
  Fabian : And O shall end, I hope.
  
  Sir Toby : I, or Ile cudgell him, and make him cry O.
  
  Maluolio : And then I. comes behind.
  
  Fabian : I, and you had any eye behinde you, you might see
  . more detraction at your heeles, then Fortunes before you.
  
  Maluolio : M,O,A,I. This simulation is not as the former:
  . and yet to crush this a little, it would bow to mee,
  . for euery one of these Letters are in my name.
  ------------------------------------------------------

[Star*Hopper]

"Bombastic,” say I. "Turgid, inflated language, purple prose....claptrap, rant, hogwash, palaver, prattle, drivel, pompous, nonsensical....worthless, you bloody Maoist!!! ”

“Means not, but blunders round about meaning; and he whose fustian’s so bad, it is not poetry, but prose run mad.” ~Alexander Pope: Epistle; Prologue to 'Imitations of Horace'.

~S*H

[geckzilla]

Was bored this morning, just figuring things out for myself but figured maybe someone would want it so here is an annotated version of it.

Why are the constellations in Stellarium different from the ones on Wikipedia?

[Star*Hopper]

Depends on what you think a 'constellation' actually is.
A constellation is roughly equivalent to something like the bounded states on a map of, eg, the USA. It's an area of the sky, delineated by boundaries. Constellations, and their boundaries, have changed many times over history, and have practically always varied with various civilizations.

The 'stick figures' most people think are THE constellations (they aren't) are only a caricatural representation of (usually) their namesake....and the individual figures we are subjected to, are HIGHLY arbitrary. It's actually unusual to see sky charts from two independant sources whose 'figures' completely agree.

Incidentally, those stick figures usually represent, or contain what is known as an 'asterism'. For example, many people think the 'Big Dipper' is a constellation -- it isn't. It is rather, an asterism in the constellation's caricature for Ursa Major, or, the Big Bear.

[geckzilla]

Yeah, I knew they were arbitrary, but I thought since I was using the Western version (it has a lot of different ones available, like Inuit, Chinese, Navajo, etc) , they'd at least sort of match up. It seems like in Stellarium they are connected in a way that most closely resembles their namesake while on Wikipedia ... well, I'm not sure how they are connected.

[bystander]

I think the definitive authority on modern constellations is the IAU.

http://www.iau.org/public_press/themes/constellations/

[geckzilla]

Heh, that's funny, the info bit in Stellarium says it's using the IAU version... Wikipedia is probably, too. All three sources are different. I guess the connection lines aren't what matters.

[Star*Hopper]

Like said, HIGHLY arbitrary.

Insofar as the 'sticks' & concurrence, largely depends on who's using what reference - even which version of that reference.

And yes, the 'IAU' is supposedly the shot-caller of the 'official' boundaries - for the actual constellations.
But then again, the IAU doesn't represent everyone - including ME! Would you believe, they actually decided Pluto's not a planet any more?!?!?!? Of course, only 4% of their membership voted that in....during closing ceremonies - then they slammed the doors & refuse to discuss it any further. But that's the IAU for ya!!!

~S*H

[geckzilla]

I take it you're one of those who is indignant at Pluto's loss of its planet status?

[Star*Hopper]

I take it you're one of those who is indignant at Pluto's loss of its planet status?

More indignant at the ever-so-presumptive IAU & their shenanigans.
Offering choices that are ludicrous, and adding a single 'most acceptable' option claiming "best compromise", voting, THEN revealing the consequence of what was just voted on, is no way for an "Official" body to run things.

[Chris Peterson]

Heh, that's funny, the info bit in Stellarium says it's using the IAU version... Wikipedia is probably, too. All three sources are different. I guess the connection lines aren't what matters.

Not only are the connection lines unimportant and unspecified by any central authority like the IAU, but in many cases they are protected by copyright. So charts that include lines will either design their own, license an existing design, or use patterns that are in the public domain.

The IAU only specifies the names and rectilinear boundary coordinates of each of the 88 constellations, not any stick figures or asterism names.

[Star*Hopper]

Silliness in itself, considering one would only need add (or subtract) a single short line segment in only one constellation to have their own, "unique" set. What would be absolutely delightful would be if EVERYone were to create, and copyright, their own version -- one has to wonder what some 'modern' skycharts would look like.

I'd guess, a great Chinese Fire Drill In The Sky.
~*

[geckzilla]

Any work one creates is automatically copyrighted to oneself. So upon creation, it's copyrighted. I guess it makes sense for asterism names and the connecting lines to be copyrighted since they are some kind of artwork but it seems strange.

Good thing Stellarium is open source, eh? I guess it's ok for me to use its lines as long as I don't break the GNU agreement and then just hope Mr. Guisard does not mind.

[Star*Hopper]

Raises the spector of those 'dot-to-dot' pix we drew as kids. Hard to think of some 'not so bright' kids' products being copyrightable art, just cuz he couldn't stay 'on the line' or connect the correct ones, eh?
*LULZ*

Silliness, I say. Ancient Chinese scientist /Arabian nomad descendants sue everybody! Ho La-a-ah!!!
~*

[DavidLeodis]

Was bored this morning, just figuring things out for myself but figured maybe someone would want it so here is an annotated version of it.

Why are the constellations in Stellarium different from the ones on Wikipedia?

Thanks geckzilla for the annotation as I wasn't certain which was Sirius and which Canopus. I'm curious though why Sirius (the brightest star in the sky as we see it) appears less bright in the APOD image than Canopus (the second brightest star we see in the sky).

[groverwa]

New to sending comments but have been a fan of the site for a long time - look at it each day

My impression of Easter Island from pics and documentaries is that there are no or few trees on the island but it seems, to me, that there are trees on the horizon in this pic - maybe I am wrong

Mike

[Star*Hopper]

Yes - Easter Island has been cited as an example of a completely collapsed ecology. Didn't look back at the picture to verify your observation, but there is/are ongoing project(s) to re-introduce formerly native botanics - or at least, as close as they can come to it. No way to verify what you saw as part of that of course, but that might explain it.

[owlice]

All that's needed for this pic is a soundtrack, which would have to be Throat Culture's Easter Island Head.

Moai -- on my list (my long long list) of things to see with mine own eyes someday.

[geckzilla]

Thanks geckzilla for the annotation as I wasn't certain which was Sirius and which Canopus. I'm curious though why Sirius (the brightest star in the sky as we see it) appears less bright in the APOD image than Canopus (the second brightest star we see in the sky).

It's definitely the cloud in front of it. It blocked some of the light from Sirius and most of the light from the other stars near Sirius but Sirius is so bright that it pierces through.