John Burridge

The other night I went out and photographed the Moon near Antares.  As usual with photos taken of the sky when the Moon is much more than five days old, the moon is over-exposed in order to get Antares to show at all.   

It turned out that while the Moon was near its North Ascending Node, it was still below the ecliptic and low enough in the sky that I had to go into the street to capture it with my camera.

Since Antares is one of the so-called Royal Stars, I decided that I could us the position of the Moon on Portable Stonehenge to mark Antares' position on the Wheel of the Year.  Thousands of years ago, Antares would have been near the sun during the northern hemisphere's autumnal equinox  but the procession of the seasons has shifted things around and now it's closer (relatively speaking) to the sun during the winter solstice.

June 4, the Full Moon was close to the star Antares.  I had been under the impression they'd be much closer together than they appeared--and as usual the Junuary clouds came to photobomb the show--but I was happy to get the two sky objects together.   Alas, the skies were not cooperative for the conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon a few days later.

Every now and then I examine the process of photographing the night sky (okay, every now and then Mark seems a little dismayed by how many photographs of the sky I have floating around on local and remote hard drives).  Is night sky photography an attempt to own a particular moment?  Do I risk dismembering the cosmos in an attempt to measure it in a recording?  Have I somehow diminished the Moon by capturing its shadow in pixels -- bound in a 3 by 5 rectangle, is it now cut off from its greater self in the eon-long night?   I'd like to think that I'm not collecting the Moon and the Night so much as curating views of them.

Is photographing The Moon and Antares participatory?   On one level, it is, because in order to create the photograph I have to stand in a certain place at a certain time -- but the same could be said for a theatre audience.   On another level it isn't, because I have to remind myself to step away from the camera and be in the moment.   I suppose it's collaborative, and one could argue that I'm collaborating with my camera more than I am with the heavenly bodies.  (Now of course I'm thinking about that Celebes crested macaques selfie copyright issue.)  But then again, is observing (and appreciating) the alignment of the Moon and stars with photography any different than gathering at Stonehenge on the Solstice to observe (and celebrate) the stations of the Sun?  I suppose I'll have to burn incense the next time I take photos.

While I'm contemplating photo-paganism -- and moments of celebration, transformation, and communion -- does a photograph of the Full Moon over Antares have an intrinsic symbolic meaning, or does one have to know that the red dot in the photo is considered the Heart of Scorpius, which requires an attendant grounding in Greek mythology and western astronomy/astrology?   Is taking a photograph the same as marking a moment, and by marking it, does that make it a sacred or numinous one?  I guess I'd answer with "Scripture is everywhere; pay attention."

Hmm.  It occurs to me that now I can justify intoning "The ritual is complete!" at the end of a photo shoot.  (It also occurs to me that Mark may want more photographs of family members and less of inanimate objects.)

In other news, the Writing Pavilion is up.  In theory this means that I will be able to write outside more because the sun won't be beating down on me and/or light sprinkles won't get my writing space wet.   An added benefit of the pavilion, which the café umbrella before it also had, was that it reflects the sound of the fountain in a kind of surround-sound effect.   At night, I can zip up the netting and (mostly) be free of mosquitoes.

I've hung a griffin banner (the other one is packed up somewhere, and also some leaded crystals for scintillating rainbow splashes.





The poppies are mostly done, but we get the occasional late bloom.

Smokey tore into our bedroom this morning on some Secret Cat Mission, and when I looked out the back, I saw that the sky was actually clear and that the Moon, Venus and Jupiter were out. 

I snapped a ton of shots, shivering in the cold as the dew froze on the table. 

Why I like Antares.

1. It's big and red, like the planet Mars; that's why it's called "The Rival (Anti) of Mars (Ares)." The star is an astronomy, a language and a mythology lesson all rolled up into one bright red package.



2. It's the heart of Scorpio, the Scorpion. Scorpio is one of the few constellations that actually looks like what it is (in this case a really big scorpion). And it's wicked cool if only for the reason that if I'm going to have to be looking at a scorpion, at least this one is made up of twinkly stars, is light-years away and is unable to sting me.



3. And finally, and best of all, every time I see Antares, it's an excuse to channel my Inner Nichelle Nichols in her role as Lt. Uhura and start singing "Beyond Antares."