APOD: The Full Moon and the Dancer (2022 Jan 22)

[APOD Robot]

The Full Moon and the Dancer

Explanation: On Monday, January's Full Moon rose as the Sun set. Spotted near the eastern horizon, its warm hues are seen in this photo taken near Cagliari, capital city of the Italian island of Sardinia. Of course the familiar patterns of light and dark across the Moon's nearside are created by bright rugged highlands and dark smooth lunar maria. Traditionally the patterns are seen as pareidolia, giving the visual illusion of a human face like the Man in the Moon, or familiar animal like the Moon rabbit. But for a moment the swarming murmuration, also known as a flock of starlings, frozen in the snapshot's field of view lends another pareidolic element to the scene. Some see the graceful figure of a dancer enchanted by moonlight.

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[Ann]

Amazing!!! I have never seen so many starlings at once, and I have certainly never seen them create a complex "dancing figure"!

Ann

[Tany]

I just want to mention the studies on the flocks of starlings by the Italian Nobel laureate Giorgio Parisi.
Thanks APOD

[orin stepanek]

IMG_4039copia2_1024.jpg

The birds are poetry in motion to watch! I wouldn't want to be
standing under them at ant time!
Beautiful catch by the photographer!

[neufer]

<<Eugene Schieffelin (January 29, 1827 – August 15, 1906) has been considered the primary person responsible for introducing the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) to North America. Schieffelin was the seventh son of Henry Hamilton Schieffelin (1783–1865) and Maria Theresa (née Bradhurst) Schieffelin (1786–1872). His father, a prominent lawyer, was named in honor of Governor Henry Hamilton for whom his grandfather Jacob Schieffelin served as secretary for during the American Revolutionary War. The Schieffelin family was one of the oldest families in Manhattan.

Schieffelin belonged to the American Acclimatization Society, a group that aimed to help exchange plants and animals from one part of the world to another. In the 19th century, such acclimatization societies were fashionable and supported by the scientific knowledge and beliefs of that era, as the effect that non-native species could have on the local ecosystem was not yet known.

In 1890, Schieffelin released 60 imported starlings from England into New York City's Central Park. He did the same with another 40 birds in 1891. According to an oft-repeated story, Schieffelin supposedly introduced starlings as part of a project to bring to the United States all the birds mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare. He may have also been trying to control the same pests that had been annoying him thirty years earlier, when he sponsored the introduction of the house sparrow to North America. The successful spread of starlings has come at the expense of many native birds that compete with the starling for nest holes in trees. The starlings have also had negative impact on the US economy and ecosystem. European starlings are now considered an invasive species in the United States.>>

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

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• King Henry IV, part I: I, iii

HOTSPUR: I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
. Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him
. To keep his anger still in motion.
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• King Henry V, : III, vii

Chorus: Now entertain conjecture of a time
. When creeping murmur and the poring dark
. Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

[Cousin Ricky]

I see a dancer mooning the Moon.

[Cousin Ricky]

I was never able to picture a face in the Moon until I saw it explained in detail in a book, meticulously matching lunar maria to facial features. And now, in the years since I read that book, I just can't see the face any more.

[Fred the Cat]

Beautiful birds with complex history.

[neufer]

I was never able to picture a face in the Moon until I saw it explained in detail in a book, meticulously matching lunar maria to facial features. And now, in the years since I read that book, I just can't see the face any more.

• Higher contrast plus lower resolution helps:

Near full moon over Berlin, Germany, in December 2015

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[johnnydeep]

Amazing!!! I have never seen so many starlings at once, and I have certainly never seen them create a complex "dancing figure"!

Ann

If you thought the still was good, I hope you also watched the "murmuration of starlings" video!

[Cousin Ricky]

I was never able to picture a face in the Moon until I saw it explained in detail in a book, meticulously matching lunar maria to facial features. And now, in the years since I read that book, I just can't see the face any more.

• Higher contrast plus lower resolution helps:

Near full moon over Berlin, Germany, in December 2015

---

So, you’re saying I should look at the Moon without my glasses?

[neufer]

So, you’re saying I should look at the Moon without my glasses?

• Or vice versa.

[Cousin Ricky]

I was never able to picture a face in the Moon until I saw it explained in detail in a book, meticulously matching lunar maria to facial features. And now, in the years since I read that book, I just can't see the face any more.

• Higher contrast plus lower resolution helps:

Near full moon over Berlin, Germany, in December 2015

---

After seeing your photograph, I waited until a full Moon and tried again. The Moon was too bright to see anything (yes, I know it’s easier before it gets dark, but there’s a big hill to my east), so I went back for my Moon filt... *rummage, rummage* where is that #@&%ing moon filter?

Um, I grabbed my otherwise useless broadband light pollution filter, and tried again. I saw nothing. So I put away the filter and waited for my eyes to adjust to looking at the Moon without it. If I squinted at it just so, I could almost convince myself that that mare is an eye, that smudge could be interpreted as a mouth that got on the wrong side of a boxing glove, ... uh... maybe a Picasso? And I’m pretty sure that the moon is in a different libration state that it was in your photo.

And without glasses? I just see a mottled fuzzy blob.

Seriously, how do people look at the Moon and see a face? My pareidolia doesn’t stretch that far.

Also, what happened to my Moon filter? And why was my long-lost Barlow sitting inside the box for the 26 mm Plössl that I never use[1]? But then where did the 26 mm Plössl get to?

[1] Why don’t I use it? Because I already had a 25 mm Plössl. You can get overloaded with those bundled eyepieces.

[johnnydeep]

I was never able to picture a face in the Moon until I saw it explained in detail in a book, meticulously matching lunar maria to facial features. And now, in the years since I read that book, I just can't see the face any more.

• Higher contrast plus lower resolution helps:

Near full moon over Berlin, Germany, in December 2015

---

After seeing your photograph, I waited until a full Moon and tried again. The Moon was too bright to see anything (yes, I know it’s easier before it gets dark, but there’s a big hill to my east), so I went back for my Moon filt... *rummage, rummage* where is that #@&%ing moon filter?

Um, I grabbed my otherwise useless broadband light pollution filter, and tried again. I saw nothing. So I put away the filter and waited for my eyes to adjust to looking at the Moon without it. If I squinted at it just so, I could almost convince myself that that mare is an eye, that smudge could be interpreted as a mouth that got on the wrong side of a boxing glove, ... uh... maybe a Picasso? And I’m pretty sure that the moon is in a different libration state that it was in your photo.

And without glasses? I just see a mottled fuzzy blob.

Seriously, how do people look at the Moon and see a face? My pareidolia doesn’t stretch that far.

Also, what happened to my Moon filter? And why was my long-lost Barlow sitting inside the box for the 26 mm Plössl that I never use[1]? But then where did the 26 mm Plössl get to?

[1] Why don’t I use it? Because I already had a 25 mm Plössl. You can get overloaded with those bundled eyepieces.

Yeah, seeing any "face" there, much less a man's face, is a stretch of the imagination to be sure. This one needs some serious facial reconstruction surgery:

The man in the moon

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But I admit that the 3D "nose" effect here does look pretty good!