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Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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While I realize the mythological parallels, I think some people take it a bit too far. Alexander the Great could be said to have many mythological parallels in his life, but no one doubts that he existed. What annoys me the most is when people are so reductionist as to say that Christianity is merely sun worship. Archetypes recur both in mythology AND in real life. I am certainly willing to grant that the story of Jesus may have been mythologically enhanced, but I suspect he was a real prophet who lived in 1st century Judea. Even some of those aspects of his life which parallel other myths may have actually happened, and the authors of the gospels cherry-picked those aspects and emphasized them in order to give greater credence to the messianic claims. In fact, if he was the messiah, I would expect his life to take on mythological dimensions.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: can anyone confirm this? [Re: Silversoul]
#7645397 - 11/16/07 07:10 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Even though Albert Schweitzer, in his Quest for the Historical Jesus, and more recently, Freke & Gandy in their Gnostic books came to the conclusion that Jesus was not a historical personage, I do not subscribe to that theory. I tend toward your take on the matter. I still cannot claim to know with absolute certainty, but then again, what can anyone know with absolute certainty other than immediate experience?
Sun worship was far more numinous a thing than what beach-loving or Neo-Pagan revelling moderns can experience today. I think it would be more modernist thinking to assume that mere hedonism with or without a ritualistic flavor is all that ancient people experienced. They had no idea the size or distance of the Sun, and its warmth and light was no doubt much more an immediate experience of Life itself than it is for us. So while you don't like Christianity being marginalized as mere Sun worship, let's not marginalize Sun worship from our modernist perspective.
I'm certain that 'miracles' (AKA synchronicities) constellate to a MUCH higher degree around really High human beings. They seemed to constellate around my subjective awareness during my early tripping days and I wonder if the type of synchronicities were blatent enough to be seen objectively by others who surrounded such High beings. These events could have been recorded as 'withering the fig tree,' but I think it more likely that such stories are illustrations of miraculous/synchronistic events, like Richard Wilhelm's story about 'The Rainmaker' who was 'in the Tao.' http://www.ralphmag.org/BN/why.html
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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What kind of telescope did you use. Did you have some kind of photo processor attached.
OK, here's the whole technical story for that pic.
That was shot through an 8" Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector on a polar-aligned equatorial clock to track the stars as they moved. I sold it about 10 years ago to buy a 12", something I've regretted since. Even though it was a little scope, it had outstanding optics.
Anyway, I used a Cannon SLR at the telescope's prime focus. This was before the digital camera revolution. The film was Fuji Color Film 400 speed. This is one of the primo films for astrophotography because it responds well to a process called Gas Hyper-sensitization where the film is placed in a sealed canister, the air is evacuated, then the cannister is pressurized to a few hundred PSI with hydrogen gas for a few days. This causes a chemical change in the film that increases its speed without increasing the grain.
Now, remember that the scope was mounted on an equatorial clock drive to track the stars. This works great as-is for viewing with your eye, but the clock is not accurate enough for long-exposure photography. The reason is that the mechanical gears in the clock mechanism are not perfect and so the drive speeds up and slows down slightly as the imperfections in the gears move around. These tracking errors have to be compensated for or the images of stars will be short lines instead of pinpoints because they'd move back and forth on the film in step with the cyclical clock gear imperfections.
To correct for this, the camera is actually mounted on a special guiding adapter that splits off a little bit of light from a 'guide star' and sends it to an eyepiece with a reticle engraved.
When I was ready to begin the exposure, I adjusted the reticle so that the guide star fell exactly at the cross-hairs. Then I used a controller that very slightly biases the clock drive faster and slower depending on which button I press.
I put my eye to the guiding eyepiece, opened the shutter, then watched the guide star very carefully. When I noticed it moving slightly left due to clock error, I pressed the 'faster' button and re-centered the guide star. When I noticed it going the other way, I did the opposite.
This went on for 4 hours until the exposure was complete and I closed the shutter and sat down exhausted.
That was back then, 10 years ago. Today, CCD technology (the sensors in digital cameras) has advanced to the point where I have an automatic guider that looks at the guide star for me and does all the micro-adjusting to the clock while I sit by the scope and relax.
Ain't technology great!
F.I.U. south campus on Friday nights to attend some astronomy society meeting
That's the Southern Cross Astronomical Society. I was a director for many years until I moved to Boca Raton and the drive to Miami every Friday night became too much of a pain.
There were amateur astronomers who would gather in Elaine Gordon Park in North Miami
We used to also meet at Old Cutler Park way down south near Tamiami Airport and once a month on the new moon at Mahogany Hammock inside Everglades National Park.
Can you identify the nebula? Which constellation it appeared in?
Sure, it's M42, also known as the Orion Nebula. The M stands for Messier, the guy who first cataloged 100+ of the brightest objects up there including all the bright galaxies and nebulae.
M42 is naked eye under dark skies. If you look at Orion's belt, the west-most star is named Alnitak. Just below Alnitak and almost in line with Rigel (Orion's left foot) is where M42 lives.
Looks kinda like this:
Code:
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@ <-- M42
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Hope that renders right on your browser.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
Stranger

Registered: 12/16/04
Posts: 11,123
Loc: Texas
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: I agree with Silversoul here. I've posted aspects of these things, and Egyptian religion was never codified, deities' aspects oftentimes were shared or ambiguous (e.g., 'Eye of Re,' 'Eye of Horus, 'Eye of Osirus'), and the Early, Middle and Late Kingdoms showed lots and lots of religious evolution. Tehuti [Thoth] was originally represented as a baboon, then the Ibis-headed humanoid (coincidentally, I saw half a dozen Ibis' roosting on my neighbor's roof a few hours ago).
great post
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: can anyone confirm this? [Re: Diploid]
#7646309 - 11/16/07 11:42 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Thanks for the detailed response Diploid. Messier objects I know a little about. I knew a Professor Christie from NASAs Greenbelt office. He was one of those credited with the discovery of Chiron in the 80s. His wife Charlene, the secretary for my department at U. Maryland used to say that her husband wanted to name Chiron after her, but had to abide by the Greek scheme. Pluto/Hades and Chiron the ferryboatman who carried dead souls to Hades.
If you were at E. Gordon Park in 1994, and at F.I.U., it is possible that we've already met! That would be interesting in a coincidental way, would it not?
A pic of my home lab at the end of high school with the refractor given to me on my 6th birthday (1959)!
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Thanks!
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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If you were at E. Gordon Park in 1994, and at F.I.U., it is possible that we've already met! That would be interesting in a coincidental way, would it not?
That would be a cool coincidence. It's a small world...
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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