{"id":161,"date":"2006-01-05T11:04:18","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T00:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2006\/01\/05\/seeing-the-man-in-the-moon\/"},"modified":"2007-12-30T18:36:24","modified_gmt":"2007-12-30T08:36:24","slug":"seeing-the-man-in-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2006\/01\/05\/seeing-the-man-in-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing the Man-In-The-Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
– Carl Sagan<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a photograph<\/a> of a natural satellite known, in astronomical parlance, as “the moon”<\/a>. The photograph was taken in the Northern Hemisphere. <\/p>\n

\"Moon<\/p>\n

The moon looks different from different parts of the Earth. In the second photograph, I have rotated the image to match roughly the angle it is seen from Australia.<\/p>\n

\"Photograph<\/p>\n

Some people can see a rabbit<\/a> in this image. Good for them!<\/p>\n

I can see a man’s face – the so-called “Man in the Moon”. I’ll happily accept that it is not entirely obvious, but I’ve been able to see it since childhood. I think it is more obvious in the sky than it is in the cold light of day on a computer screen. To help you see it, I have, almost impercerptibly, touched up the following image to highlight the facial characteristics I see.<\/p>\n

I fear I am going to be laughed at here, but I have a valid point, and I will not be stopped by mere unending ridicule of my genius from my peers!<\/div>\n

\"Marked<\/p>\n

Just to be clear: I don’t really perceive the moon in bright colours, made up like Bozo the Clown. That’s just me trying to highlight the face clearly. <\/p>\n

If someone claims that they still can’t make out the face in the original, or suggests that the rosy cheeks are a little too prominent compared to the nose, or the eyebrows are a bit wonky, I will not moan. I shall act with understanding and sympathy for their complete, perhaps morbid, lack of imagination. That’s not really the point of my argument.<\/p>\n

My point is that, whether or not you can see a face in the moon in the Southern Hemisphere, you can’t see one in the Northern Hemisphere<\/strong>. Look back at the first photo! There is no<\/em> face! There is simply no<\/em> man in the moon from that angle. <\/p>\n

I have stared at the sky while in the Northern Hemisphere, and all I can make out is the Southern Hemisphere man-in-the-moon looking at me upside down and rather unhappy.<\/p>\n

Hence, I can see no basis from the claim from the Northern Hemisphere folks to be the original source of the man-in-the-moon<\/a> legend. <\/p>\n

If anyone would like to email me<\/a> an interpretation of the craters of the moon in the Northern Hemisphere orientation, I would be happy to put it up here. <\/p>\n

Until then, though, I still think the man up over there is from Down Under here!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ponderings about the origins of the Man-In-The-Moon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[107,206,59],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts-from-the-shower","tag-astronomy","tag-face-recognition","tag-moon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}