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DECEPTION, ILLUSION, DELUSION AND DEVIATION OF SELF-PERCEPTION

We don't truly see ourselves!

Recently I wrote about the eclipse of the Moon, how we can see it two ways, if we could just get out into space on the other side of the Earth toward the sun, when the other eclipse of the Moon is taking place - the Earth's shadow over it, in this other instance, the Earth itself covering it. Well, it set me to thinking, especially since when we look at the Moon or any object in the Universe, we're not really seeing it itself, but the light that is reflected from it - at varying times it takes the light to reach us. A star, say fifty light years away, we see as it was in 1955 and it might not even exist now - blown apart whatever. From out there, we'd see a new '55 (maybe a '56) Chevy in the showroom, or Marilyn Monroe with Michael Green the photographer! One day we might even see that, the star being blown apart, depending on when it happens, our seeing it the time it takes light to reach us - possibly having happened in 1980!

I have that well-known red Astroscan telescope, from Edmund Scientifics, bought it maybe four years ago? I've not used it much, because the lens that came with it was really worthless, no better than a cheap scope. It's like buying a digital camera and getting a memory card that will allow you to only take maybe 10 pictures. So, when Mars came close by in August 2003, my excitement came to an abrupt end when I realized I was seeing nothing more than what I'd have seen in a cheap scope. It was too late for me to order the right lens, but I have it now for this year's Mars opposition. I also have the Barlow lens to give even that lens greater magnification. In late October, I should realize what I had hoped to realize in 2003, though maybe not as dramatic.

Through a telescope, when one looks at the Moon, Mars or any object in the Universe, you see it upside down - the Martian southern hemisphere at the top, and the northern hemisphere at the bottom. If you want to see it the way we traditionally think of the planet as being properly seen, then we can go around to the other side of the telescope, getting in to a real awkward position to see it that way - the Martian north pole at the top, the south pole at the bottom, though its north pole you'd really not see, since Mars like Earth, has a tilt - one degree more than the Earth - 24 degrees, I think. When Earth and Mars are at different positions in their orbits, and still at opposition, maybe it would

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