Afternoon project - see if I can power up the telescope motor drives. I bought it 8 years ago and finally got around to firing it up. Took awhile to get the hang of the menus on the handheld computer. I seem to have brought it to life. If I read the manual about 10 more times I might be able to align the scope correctly for some nice deep space imaging. Got a great photo today from Kristinna....Mr. Floppy seemed quite intrigued by a mini human and Luna was happy to make his acquaintance. 56,66,44,0,B
16 comments:
Oh my gosh! that is the most precious shot of Mr. Floppy and little Luna. both are smiling!
Cute kid.
Get a cement mixer to wash your clothes at the Field Lab. Wait a minute, I recall you posting a picture of a peddle powered washing machine, what happened to it?
hard to believe that if Floppy wasn't in your safe haven, he could be blasted by the state of Texas just for being Floppy... there is a state of innocence that exists between Floppy and Luna that is woefully missing in the older world. Great image by K. Wonder if Luna will think of Floppy and the Moon when she is in her 50s?
I'm on the state's side. Not pretty but reality.
Parks staff have stated on the record that they need to kill the wild burros to ensure that they can restore ‘native’ bighorn sheep to the park. Bighorn are a high profile species prized by big game hunters. Their restoration is heavily subsidized by private individuals who believe that the wild burro is an ‘enemy’ of the bighorn. How can Texas get away with killing off a species that would be protected on federal land? A technicality. Ignoring that wild burros are a restored native species that has existed in Texas for 500 years, Texas Parks & Wildlife designates wild burros under the vague definition of ‘invasive species.’
@ remmij... your second post on this issue. Thanks for standing up for the burros. And thanks for providing context, JW. Anything someone out-of-state can do?
Awesomely cute photo of Luna and Mr Floppy. Those dimples are impressive. She's definitely not afraid of Mr F.
As anyone who has spent time with them can tell you, Mr. Floppy and his ilk are very soulful creatures.
Not too clear on what anyone would have against them.
killing a species so that THAT species does not injury the newest introduced species before BIG MONEY can KILL the new species and hang it's head in it's den. yeah, that's definitely bull crap.
donkeys are incredibily smart creatures and yet are some of the most abused animals on the planet. There is some major Karma waiting for those who are killing these animals for the state and for those whom support the state in their killing spree. Smart people can deal with a problem without death being involved, stupid people kill to solve a problem.
I heard we are on the list of invasive species in this area too.
Hay BBC, I like your washing machine idea
Going to kill a species to restore
a species so they can kill a species. Sounds like tax dollars
at work and government pretzel
logic. Sort of like the wolf.It
needs to be protected, reintroduced
into the wild. Oh ! it's being a wolf,now we have to kill it .Now I know why Floppy always looks depressed.There is a contract out on him..........
looking back over this, it is invasively wordy - in TL;DR territory... just get tired of the "wipe'em out mentality" being tossed out as the "final" ultimate, and often, first solution...
environmental species xenophobia with a little aryan fascism tossed into the stew...
how'd that work out all through history?
my 2¢ mini rant:
invasive! invasive! - you would think that moments after the photo was taken, Mr. Floppy consumed poor little Luna and then stood on his hind legs and skipped out of the Wells compound shooting lightening bolts out his eyes and looking for his next unsuspecting victim.
The truth is the millions of bipeds - native & illegal imports - do more damage to the "fragile" desert environment than any marauding herd of machete wielding burros could ever do.
Even using the pro liquidation folks numbers for TX, they cite ≈300 wild donkeys and say the program has killed almost half (128) already - even if you accepted the premise that 300 over 500 years equaled an invasion, are they really suggesting that west TX can't sustain a herd of around 150? Of course the longhorns are in the crosshairs too.
Just a slippery slope when eradication gets mixed with expediency and bipedal conceit of knowing what's best...
just to be fair, a pretty good example of the pro argument and a whole collective site devoted to the "invasive" - clearly there are such things, less clear is how wide the invasive net is cast.
http://texascryptidhunter.blogspot.com/2011/12/invasive-burros-threatening-west-texas.html
your tax dollars at work:
http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/index.shtml
I hope you get the telescope up and running soon. Looking forward to seeing some telescope pics of outer space, or real close ups of terrestrial stuff in your line of sight. Fun, either way!
It's sad about the burros, and the bighorn sheep, for that matter. People still hunt game, and game management has been with us for centuries. This is just another incarnation of it, with a Texas Twist. The whole wolf/deer issue, and the eradication of wild bison are but a couple of the most egregious examples. People are idiots - what can you do?
As I recall you only need to enter two stars in the telescopes computer. It computes the rest from those coordinates. I guess the data interface on the control paddle takes some work to learn?
On the burros they are only being eradicated on state controlled property right?
All the hoopla aside, that is one of the cutest pictures I've seen in a while.
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