Mike,
Tonight at dinner, Mukul brought down a bottle of sake that he thought we should finish off, since “Sake always goes better with dinner, right?” So after finishing it off along with dinner, I decided to go for a walk in the night. Being well insulated and especially well lubricated, I headed for the 45-m dish, which is well lit even in the wee hours of the morning. It appears to be only about 100 m away, but when I got further down the road, it didn’t seem to be any bigger. Like a mountain in the distance, it seemed to remain the same size as I walked. But after 10 min or so of walking, it did seem to loom larger.¬â€
I had this idea that I’d shoot a picture of it with the moon over the big dish, but as I got closer, the idea lost all its practicality, as I’d have to tramp into the snowy woods about a km off to the left to get both the telescope and the moon into the same frame of my camera. Then I was under it, and it looked like the spaceship in Chicken Little. When you peered up, it was all there was.. But back in the direction I had been walking from I could see Mt Nobeyama ski area with all its photogenic but light polluting beacons on the slopes. “That should make a good picture, combined with the massive support structure of the telescope”, I said to myself. So I found a good support for the camera and took the attached picture. I think it’s one of the most interesting shots I’ve taken here. But that may just be the sake talking. I’ll be glad to hear any contradictions.
Shamaru
View image
michael Miller
“…as I’d have to tramp into the snowy woods about a km off to the left to get both the telescope and the moon into the same frame of my camera.”
Is this the ed/rakkity/shamaru I’ve come to worship at the feet of for his outrageous outdoor pursuits no matter what appendage is dangling that day? A single km? I’d say that was the sake talking.
Now this photo is indeed compelling, but without your description, I might think lunar lander with aliens about to attack.
rakkity
It wasn’t the distance but the opacity of the forest.
At a distance where I could squeeze a goodly fraction of the mighty dish into my frame, the telescope would be obscured by the branches of a hundred trees.
For extra credit–what’s doing the reflecting at the bottom of the picture (an unplanned fillip)?
adam
At first I thought an observational mirror of some sort, wondering at its exposure and lack of snow cover, then I realized it’s a car (I think). Which I.D. I’d at first discounted knowing you’d walked, but needing a steadying platform, the fence seeming to decsribe a road, and there being (rare) others in your realm, that’d do …
Whatever it’s I.D., the tilt works because of it, BTW, the Rorschach quality making an interesting picture that would’ve been implausibly askew without it balanced and more successful.
rakkity
You are right about the car. Must have been the operator’s. For that you win the prize of 45 kg
of Nobeyama mushrooms. Come on down and pick it up.
As for balance, you’re right, too. It would have been skewed without the reflection. Pure serendipity.