Notices by Mark McCaughrean (markmccaughrean@mastodon.social)

That was fun 🙂

Went up to the Teltschikturm at the top of our valley, to get clear view of the eastern horizon as the eclipsed Moon rose 👀

In the event, it had to rise 5° before becoming visible above a line of murk, but then put on a nice show until the end of totality & into the partial phase 🌞🌍🌕

A great place to view the eclipse, although at least a 100 other people had the same idea & I wondered about the tower’s load capacity 😬✌️

#Astronomy #Photography #LunarEclipse #Heidelberg

Well, well, well 🤷♂️

Three new species of insect this evening. Two fairly easily identified, but the third has me rather flummoxed. Hang around for that one 🧐

First though, a common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum; Ackerhummel in 🇩🇪).

I've seen loads of these hairy little bumblebees over the summer, but oddly, it has taken until now for me to photograph one reasonably well 🐝

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🦗
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

Just a few minutes in the garden ahead of some appointments & no new species immediately spotted 🤷♂️

But a couple of familiar friends posed prettily all the same: a small white butterfly (Pieris rapae; Kleine Kohlweißling 🇩🇪) & a cellophane bee (Colletes hederae; Efeu-Seidenbiene 🇩🇪), the latter replete with pollen.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🦗
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

This one is, I'm pretty sure, a new one for my garden list.

It's a nymph of a species in the Stictopleurus genus, & judging from various photos & especially the light eyes & red antennae, I'm going to guess that it's S. abutilon.

That'd be the knapweed rhopalid in English & the Helle Porenwanze in German).

Bonus adult rhopalids in the background.

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🦗
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲e

Rather embarrassed by how bad these pictures are, but this tiny fly was hyperactive & I was struggling to keep my balance 🤷♂️

But it's an interesting one – a tachnid fly of the Leucostoma genus, with characteristic large white calypters under the wings & a tapered abdomen.

And this is a female, betrayed by the forceps-like pincers at the end of the abdomen.

Can anyone ID the species? 🧐

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🦗
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

Why you shouldn't use AI-derived "facts" for anything serious, part 5912.

The galactic coordinates of the Orion Nebula are l~209º, b~-19º.

That puts it in the third galactic quadrant: the four quadrants are l=0–90º, 90–180º, 180–270º, & 270–360º.

Wikipedia has this correct, & yet Google's AI, citing that very source, says "nope, it's in the second galactic quadrant."

Just imagine how many actually important things this software is fucking up daily with its fake authoritativeness 🙄

So far so acceptable for the spider – the flies don't take much.

However, then a European paper wasp (Polistes dominula) chanced upon the scene & saw some free food on offer.

It went about sawing off the abdomen of the bee, which it duly managed, before flying away to consume it. These wasps are generalists – they eat many species of insect.

When this happens, a small swarm of small opportunists called jackal flies, often of the Milichiidae family, will gather around to partake in some of the bounty of the spider's hunt.

You can see several of them here, including on the wings of the bee & on the goldenrod crab spider.

The goldenrod crab spider (Misumena vatia) hangs out in the lavender bush & pretends to be a flower. It uses this ploy to catch unwitting prey, of which there is much in the bush at this time of year.

Evidently, it caught a honeybee (Apis mellifera) & went about its business of injecting venom into the bee's head to subdue it, then adding digestive enzymes to liquidise it & suck out the resulting fluids.

However, the wasp wasn't satisfied with just the bee's abdomen.

Four minutes after it left with that, it returned, wrestled the upper half of the bee from the spider's grip, & flew off with that too.

The spider, resigned to the situation, crawled to the other side of the stem to resume its hunt.

One can only hope it managed to get at least some nourishment from the bee before the wasp did the dirty.

And the jackal flies will doubtless return next time too.

It's war out there, I tell you.

Once the wasp had flown off with the lower half of the bee, the spider hauled the upper half closer into its arms & legs, & continued to suck the bee's innards.

The jackal flies continued to enjoy their part of the spoils.

Carnage in the lavender bush 🙀

See below for the rundown on what's going on here & what happened next 👇

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🦗
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

After a some pictures of dead insects earlier, here are a few of some very much alive ones in the garden today.

First, some western honey bees (Apis mellifera) going about their business 🐝

Of course, they've been here all summer, but flit around so quickly, I haven't got many good shots 🤷♂️

Plus I've been unfairly by more exotic species, which is unfair, given how vital these are 🙂👍

#Heidelberg 🏰
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🐞
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#InsectsOfMastodon 🦗
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

I love salty Marmite, vinegary lambic beers, & fermented pickles 🤤

But this combination, my friends, is a challenge 😬✌️

Even my German wife thinks I’m insane 🤪

I have no idea whether I’ll be able to finish it before having to go through airport security. This stuff should be consumed in homeopathic doses 🙃

#ExtremeFoods
#Germany

Still trying to get some good bee portraits & still struggling with their large size & fidgety motions 🙀

Not that this little beast was much more cooperative – it's a ferruginous bee grabber (Sicus ferrugineus), a fly from the conopid family 🪰

As the second, not very good photo shows, it often holds its abdomen in a peculiar way, curled up underneath 🤨

#Insects 🪳
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🪰
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

I don't take many macro photos of bees – they're big & fuzzy, so hard to get much depth of focus, & they dash around madly, making it hard to grab a sharp picture 😬

And when it comes to huge carpenter bees, I also get nervous, scared I'm going to fluff the moment before they bomb off next door 🙀

Still, these shots of (I think) a pollen-covered female splay-footed carpenter (Xylocopa valga) aren't horrible 🙂🤷♂️

#Insects 🪳
#Photography 📷
#BugOfTheDay 🪰
#MacroPhotography 🔬
#BackGardenEntomology 🪲

Hot pictures for a hot afternoon 🥵

Most of the images in my book, "111 Places in Space That You Must Not Miss", came from space agencies & observatories, as well as talented archive image processors & amateur astronomers, most released with CC licences.

But I made quite a few too, also processing archival data, from my JWST observations, or from my back garden.

I've made them all available with CC BY-SA licences here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCbdAn

#SpaceScience
#111PlacesInSpace

Gone but not forgotten 🚀

On behalf of XMM-Newton, Rosetta, Herschel, Planck, BepiColombo, JWST, & JUICE, thanks for the ride to space, #Ariane5 🙇♂️

As seen at the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget today.

#Photography 📷
#SpaceScience ✨

Millions of degrees hot off the press – first results from ESA's PROBA-3 mission, using two spacecraft separated by 150 metres to create artificial solar eclipses.

This makes it possible to trace the solar corona close to the surface of the Sun on a routine basis, not just during actual eclipses.

Congratulations to the PROBA-3 team 👍

Image taken on 23 May 2025:
Inner yellow: PROBA-2 SWAP
Middle green: PROBA-3 ASPIICS
Outer red: SOHO LASCO C2

#SpaceScience

https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Proba-3/Proba-3_s_first_artificial_solar_eclipse

The cognitive dissonance in the subheading to Katya Adler’s BBC article on the Arctic is horrifying:

“As Arctic ice melts” / “New opportunities to extract oil”

“Speed up trade” / “Boost military presence”

Instead of collaborating to try to save a world heading to disaster thanks to our over-use of fossil fuels, the power-mad seem determined to dig up yet more oil & gas & enrich themselves while also preparing for seemingly inevitable war.

Realpolitik run amok.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjwqn7z02plo