Remembering PRESTAGS

Just because it was there

the moon. Starting to wane so not so bright which makes for better shots with contrast and detail rather than 'white out'. (a cropped shot of course).

 

have to post obviously - the moon

hand held last night from my front porch, seeing how the Nikon AF-P 70-300 DX goes vs the Tamron 70-200 f2.8. sharpened a little and contrast adjust a little in View NXi

70-300 AF-P

Tamron 70-200. although shorter, the Tamron image holds up well even with the additional cropping. (it is a big piece of glass)

Moon, supermoon

So I fired off some quick shots tonight before the supermoon was engulfed by cloud ...

here is one as shot (slight touchup for exposure). Hand held, D7500 @ 300mm

50% crop

Evening Sunday 3 May. D7500 @ 300mm, on tripod.

as shot

50% crop

another one, slightly different exposure

50% crop

September 22 - Feast of Saint Maurice and Companions

Happy name day to Python!

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Maurice and Companions.

Maurice was an officer of the Theban Legion. There are two things that set this legion apart from other Roman legions of the time. First, the high number of legionnaires, and second it was made up exclusively of Christians. It was called the Theban Legion (Alkateeba al Teebia) because the men were Egyptian Christian Copts recruited from and stationed in Thebes in Upper Egypt. The leaders of the Theban Legion were Mauritius (St Maurice or St Moritz), Candidus and Exupernis (Exuperantius).

The Thebean legion was one of those which were sent by Dioclesian (who was co-ruler with Maximian) out of the East to compose his army for his expedition into Gaul. The Theban Legion reached Maximian’s army in Gaul to engage the Bagaude by way of the St Bernard’s Pass in the Alps. Here in AD 286  Maximian, fearing religious dissent, organized a universal sacrifice, in which the whole army was required to participate and swear an oath of allegiance, as well as promise to assist in the extermination of Christianity from Gaul. Maximian was uncompromising: he organized the un-Roman rite of adoratio (proskynesis in Greek), which was the Persian rite of worship to the Shah-I-Shah as a living god, translated over to the Roman emperor. Worshippers were obliged to prostrate themselves before the emperor three times, ironically and poignantly for the Christians, as it was just as Satan had asked of Jesus

Maurice and his fellow legionnaires refused to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods as ordered by the Emperor to insure victory over rebelling Bagaudae. When they refused to obey repeated orders to do so and withdrew from the army encamped at Octodurum (Martigny) near Lake Geneva to Agaunum (St. Maurice-en-Valais), Maximian had the entire Legion of over six thousand men put to death.

The entire legion refused point-blank to sacrifice or take the oaths, incensing Maximian, whoordered the decimation of the legion at Martigny. It was not to be any ordinary decimation. When every tenth man had been butchered, the survivors bucked the trend and enthusiastically reasserted their Christian faith, further enraging Maximian; 666 more soldiers then met their deaths, their blood turning the Rhone and its flood plain crimson. This was repeated until all the soldiers were dead. To the end they were encouraged in their constancy by Maurice and two fellow officers, Exuperius and Candidus. Not all the members of the legion were at Aguanum at the time of the massacre. Some were posted at various points along the military road linking Switzerland with Germany and Italy. These were systematically martyred wherever they were found.

From Father Alban Butler “Saint Maurice and His Companions, Martyrs”. Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints, 1866:

"The emperor sent forth fresh threats that it was in vain they confided in their multitude; and that if they persisted in their disobedience, not a man among them should escape death. The legion, by the advice of their generous leaders, answered him by a dutiful remonstrance, the substance of which was as follows: “We are your soldiers, but are servants of the true God. We owe you military service and obedience; but we cannot renounce Him who is our Creator and Master, and also yours, even whilst you reject him. In all things which are not against his law we most willingly obey you, as we have done hitherto. We readily oppose all your enemies, whoever they are; but we cannot dip our hands in the blood of innocent persons. We have taken an oath to God before we took one to you: you can place no confidence in our second oath, should we violate the first. You command us to punish the Christians: behold we are all such. We confess God the Father, author of all things, and his Son, Jesus Christ. We have seen our companions slain without lamenting them; and we rejoice at their honour. Neither this extremity to which we are reduced, nor any provocation hath tempted us to revolt. We have arms in our hands; but we do not resist, because we had rather die innocent than live by any sin.”

This legion consisted of about six thousand six hundred men, who were all well armed, and might have sold their lives very dear. But they had learned to give to God what is God’s, and to Cæsar what is Cæsar’s, and they showed their courage more in dying than they had ever done in the most hazardous enterprises."

Python loves a good statue:

Interestingly, in relation to Python's second name (and no offense to Alexander the Great), there is a Saint Alexander in the story of the Theban Legion.

Alexander of Bergamo is said to have been a survivor of the decimation of the Theban Legion who escaped to Milan, where he was recognized and imprisoned until he renounced his Christian faith. Nevertheless, Alexander escaped and fled to Como, only to be captured again and brought back to Milan where he was condemned to death by decapitation, but during the execution the executioner’s arms went stiff. He was imprisoned again and once again managed to escape, ending up in Bergamo. Alexander was yet again captured and was  decapitated on 26 August AD 303, where the church of San Alessandro in Colonna now stands.

From the Weapons and Warfare Website:

"Saint Maurice is one of the most popular saints in Western Europe, with over 650 foundations in his name in France alone. Five cathedrals, countless churches, chapels and altars are consecrated in his name all over Europe. Aguanum (Saint Maurice en Valais) has always remained the capital city of veneration of the Thebans and a major pilgrimage resort. An all-night vigil on the night before the feast is regularly attended by up to 1,000 people. On the actual feast day, they carry the relics of the martyrs in the ancient silver caskets. Over seventy towns bear the name of Saint Maurice. In the monastery carrying his name in Switzerland, the vigil ‘Tasbeha’ has been chanted continuously twenty-four hours a day without stopping for more than 500 years now. On 19 July 1941, Pope Pius XII declared Saint Maurice patron Saint of the Italian Army’s Alpini Mountain Infantry Corps".

The Abbey of St. Maurice, Agaunum (French: Abbaye de Saint-Maurice d'Agaune or Saint-Maurice-en-Valais) is a Swiss monastery  which dates from the 6th century. The abbey  is best known for its connection to the story of the martyrdom of the Theban Legion, its original practice of perpetual psalmody, and a collection of art and antiquity:

There is also the famous Saint Maurice Cathedral in Angers. Here are two shots (notice also cleverly getting a moon into this post):

 

Mooncake Festival Feasting

Last night was part of the mooncake festival and I was allowed to have duck.

Duck is one of the special foods for the festival:

The mooncake festival marks the end of the autumn harvest, and is held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar with a full moon at night, corresponding to mid September to early October of the Gregorian calendar. The official festival day was Friday 13 September.

Last night the moon was certainly very full and bright. I'm surprised Thygo did not post a moon photograph.

We were also still celebrating #3 daughter's important birthday, and she had a second birthday cake of her favourite kind, ie a family meat pie.

Apparently Duck Rather than Chicken is the go-to fowl for this festival. Not only are ducks fattest at this time of the year, their natural game-meat flavour is the richest too, making it the peak season to enjoy duck meat. It is also believed that eating duck in Autumn helped to expel pathogenic heat to restore the balance of yin and yang in the body, hence enhancing one’s health. I'm only allowed duck once a year. Python gets it all the time so he must have a perfect yin and yang balance.

We got a whole Peking Duck, chopped up to go:

Adding to the festivities, Satay Chicken :

Desert, the birthday meat pie:

Where is the moon?

Since Thygo hasn't done a photograph, I have done one. B700:

Star photography - part 2 - stars, kit, moon

one of the first ones, 15mm, complete with airplane or chopper ... Note that this is not what my eye saw - these are long exposures between 10 and 30 seconds. The trees are all fuzzy because it was quite windy and they were flapping about.

shot settings: manual focus (preset before dark), manual exposure - f2.8 & between 10 and 30 seconds, ISO between 2000 and 3200.

11mm showing the ingress light from the late arrival campers ...

20mm, after moving a bit further up the hill. Can you see the Southern Cross?

There are a few more. I was reasonably pleased with this for a first go.  Here is the set up as shot by my phone

Off to bed reasonably early but didn't sleep so well. Very windy through the night. Got up at 3am for a call of nature ...
and lo, the waning moon was evident. 300mm and cropped a lot. manual exposure about 1/500 sec and f8, ISO 400 (from memory)

 

next time I think I will search for a spot with a rocky outcrop in the foreground. Orroral valley would be great but I think it is shut off at night.

Daytime Moon

Hand held (but leaning on a pole) on the new Panasonic Lumix DC-TZ90.

I should have taken it three days ago to celebrate the anniversary.

 

For Thygs

I took this late last week, close to the time of the full moon.

B700. Hand Held.

Blood Moon

I got up at 5.20 am to walk to the bay to take some photos of the blood moon.

I didn't take a tripod or my monster lens so the shots were never going to be that good. At the bay, in the dark, I could see quite a few die hards with their tripods, and the glow from the LCD screens on the back of their cameras.

It was also cloudy, so no shots of the moon without obstruction.

Mucking around with Fotor:

The moon was quite spectacular to the naked eye, and worth getting up for. Not sure when the next blood moon opportunity will be.