The photo reminded me of how dependent on our eyes we humans are for binding us into our environment. Most everything of interest is beyond hearing range.
It's obvious, I know, but it just struck me forcefully.
What a pretty picture! Spica in particular very much appeals to me, with my penchant for blue things, and in this picture it looks like a glittering stone in an engagement ring.
Ann wrote:What a pretty picture! Spica in particular very much appeals to me, with my penchant for blue things, and in this picture it looks like a glittering stone in an engagement ring.
Maybe Mars and Spica are getting hitched?
Ann
They'll be even closer in July. But it won't last. It has already been announced in the best papers that they'll be separating shortly afterwards.
<<The name Spica derives from Latin spīca virginis "Virgo's ear of grain" (usually wheat).
Spica is believed to be the star that provided Hipparchus with the data that enabled him to discover the precession of the equinoxes. A temple to Menat/Hathor at Thebes was oriented with reference to Spica when it had been constructed in 3200 BC, and, over time, precession resulted in a slow but noticeable change in the location of Spica relative to the temple. Nicolaus Copernicus made many observations of Spica with his home-made triquetrum for his researches on precession.>>
<<The sculptured Dendera zodiac (or Denderah zodiac) is a widely known Egyptian bas-relief from the ceiling of the pronaos (or portico) of a chapel dedicated to Osiris in the Hathor temple at Dendera, containing images of Taurus (the bull) and the Libra (the scales). This chapel was begun in the late Ptolemaic period; its pronaos was added by the emperor Tiberius. The relief, which John H. Rogers characterised as "the only complete map that we have of an ancient sky", has been conjectured to represent the basis on which later astronomy systems were based. It is now on display at the Musée du Louvre. The zodiac is a planisphere or map of the stars on a plane projection, showing the 12 constellations of the zodiacal band forming 36 decans of ten days each, and the planets. These decans are groups of first-magnitude stars. These were used in the ancient Egyptian calendar, which was based on lunar cycles of around 30 days and on the heliacal rising of the star Sothis (Sirius).
The controversy around the zodiac, called the "Dendera Affair", involved people of the likes of Joseph Fourier (who estimated that the age was 2500 BC), Thomas Young, Jean-François Champollion, and Jean-Baptiste Biot. Johann Karl Burckhardt and Jean-Baptiste Coraboeuf held, after analysis of the zodiac, that the ancient Egyptians understood the precession of the equinoxes. Champollion, among others, believed that it was a religious zodiac. Champollion placed the zodiac in fourth century AD. Georges Cuvier placed the date 123 AD to 147 AD. His discussion of the dating question is an interesting summary of the reasoning as he understood it in the 1820's.>>
I see that the division of labor in Egyptian cosmology was decidedly sexist. The guys holding up the night sky got to sit down on the job, share work with a friend, and wear clothes.
Just as zero is not equal to infinity, everything coming from nothing is illogical.
This is a really lovely image. I've been enjoying watching Mars and Spica rising earlier week by week, and watching Mars brighten dramatically. The few telescopic views I had of Mars a few weeks ago were unremarkable, and now we've had a run of cloudy, rainy weather (very welcome, we're having a drought here in California). I'm hoping for clear skies for the opposition.
The ' Pronounced "spy-kah" ' interested me as I've always pronounced it as 'spee-kah', though I don't know why as 'spy-kah' does seem the more likely pronunciation.
PS. I like to at least find the date an image was taken but I was somewhat surprised to find in the image's Exif image in the Blogger website that the image create date was "2016:03:06 06:45:23 1 year, 11 months, 3 days, 55 minutes, 59 seconds ago".
DavidLeodis wrote:
The ' Pronounced "spy-kah" ' interested me as I've always
pronounced it as 'spee-kah', though I don't know why
as 'spy-kah' does seem the more likely pronunciation.
DavidLeodis wrote:The ' Pronounced "spy-kah" ' interested me as I've always pronounced it as 'spee-kah', though I don't know why as 'spy-kah' does seem the more likely pronunciation.
Your pronunciation would make more sense, since that's pretty close to the way spīca is pronounced in either classical or vulgar Latin (that is, a simple long i, not a diphthong). But how words are pronounced often is more a matter of convention than any solid rules.
Chris
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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
DavidLeodis wrote:The ' Pronounced "spy-kah" ' interested me as I've always pronounced it as 'spee-kah', though I don't know why as 'spy-kah' does seem the more likely pronunciation.
Your pronunciation would make more sense, since that's pretty close to the way spīca is pronounced in either classical or vulgar Latin (that is, a simple long i, not a diphthong). But how words are pronounced often is more a matter of convention than any solid rules.
Hey, let's opine about the correct pronunciations of Betelgeuse and Vega! It it's hard to apply Latin pronunciation rules to English (are we using classical Latin? vulgate/ecclesiastical?), how on Earth can anybody claim to know the single correct pronunciation of a garbled transliteration of Arabic into Latin?
Anthony Barreiro wrote:Hey, let's opine about the correct pronunciations of Betelgeuse and Vega! It it's hard to apply Latin pronunciation rules to English (are we using classical Latin? vulgate/ecclesiastical?), how on Earth can anybody claim to know the single correct pronunciation of a garbled transliteration of Arabic into Latin?
To the extent anything could be said to be "correct", it would only be a matter of convention. It's reasonable to consider something no longer correct when a significant number of people can't understand you!
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
All I need is a pronunciation key for Ophiuchus. I can't seem to remember that one. The other day I learned from owlice how to pronounce Arxiv and felt pretty silly for thinking it was pronounced ark-siv but these things always happen when you never hear anyone say them.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.
geckzilla wrote:All I need is a pronunciation key for Ophiuchus. I can't seem to remember that one. The other day I learned from owlice how to pronounce Arxiv and felt pretty silly for thinking it was pronounced ark-siv but these things always happen when you never hear anyone say them.
Oh-fee-UCK-us? That's how I say it. I hope I haven't triggered anybody's nanny software.
geckzilla wrote:
All I need is a pronunciation key for Ophiuchus. I can't seem to remember that one. The other day I learned from owlice how to pronounce Arxiv and felt pretty silly for thinking it was pronounced ark-siv but these things always happen when you never hear anyone say them.
Oh-fee-UCK-us? That's how I say it. I hope I haven't triggered anybody's nanny software.