Monday, April 15, 2024

(299) Through a pair of Dragonfly eyes

On Sunday April 7th 2024 I was upgrading/improving The Narrative Entry here Living the Dream: A Coincidence Diary: The Narrative, plus Epilogues and Appendices (james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com) and lingered on Points (45-51) re William Hartston either achieving (or missing by the skin of his teeth) grandmaster norms in the 1970s. I actually e mailed him re some details.

He replied and our interchange continued until, on the morning of Monday April 8th 2024, I e mailed to ask a few more questions.  And since my 'revamping' had also demanded work on Appendices Four and Five, I e mailed again around noon to add something very similar to Point (63) of the Narrative -

" Btw
the crater ́s also to be seen here in the ESA Press Release -
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMEYGN0LYE_index_0.html
It is the same photo as appears on my book ́s cover.

Only this time in colour:

March 1st 2007 was also the date on which Professor Roderick Main's book Revelations of Chance was released.
"Earthrise over Plaskett Crater".
The European Space Agency release is dated March 1st 2007.
The area Luna Incognita was not reconnoitred until the first probes sent back data. The earliest map of Luna Incognita was published on March 18th 1960. 

One unappreciated feature then was that Plaskett ́s Crater, of ́the dark side of the moon, is actually the very opposite.
Because of its proximity to the lunar North Pole it is 

permanently bathed in sunlight.

And here ́s the crater (See two minutes in) and the earth captured in 2007 -

"...   ...   ...

Later on Monday April 8th 2024 I again took lunch in Alumbres and then travelled back by train. For this short trip, Señor Juan Jesús Sánchez - the gentleman of the journey made on February 1st 2024 and mentioned in Entry 40 Living the Dream: A Coincidence Diary: (40) Stephen Fry, the former editor of The Times, Sir William (now Lord) Rees-Mogg and I all judge what is fit to be viewed as rational (james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com) - was once again the conductor. Only now he had a small sticker in the form of a five pointed red star stuck on his forehead! I pointed to it and told him there was a star bearing my surname and thought to be the largest in the universe.

I had already done what I had told him I would be doing, i.e. e mailed him the Youtube versions of Strangers in the Night and Love is in the Air. And, on April 11th 2024, I sent him this -

Plaskett's Star - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When I boarded the same train on Monday April 15th he greeted me with a nod and, "Plaskett". And since I had also mentioned to him that there was a crater on the moon bearing my name, I went on to affirm that in another e mail of that same evening -

KAGUYA taking "Earth-rise" by HDTV (Nov. 7, 2007) (youtube.com)

On Tuesday, April 9th, 2024 at 13:51, as part of our continuing interchange, I sent an e mail to William Hartston and concluded with -

´ Here by the Med, I am trying to improve at guitar, piano and Spanish.

NONE of these am I finding at all easy (although my son is bilingual and teaches English as a foreign language.) '  

And then, ever so slightly prompted by things such as Sñr Sanchez ́s  star sticker, I added something which felt like more than a feeling -

́Neverthess, I sense, other things are moving into position...´

In the process of amending and updating The Narrative Entry, I was moved to look still further into the star of largest known mass - Plaskett's Star. Some Google hits came back with The Plaskett Medal, something of which (I think!) I had already for some time been aware. (It was named after "Jack" Plaskett who, along with his son, "Harry" had discovered the star in 1922. My father was known as Jack and my first name is Harold.) Plaskett Medal | RASC

The Medal is made of gold and awarded annually. I now saw that the last recipient, in 2023, was a Dr Deborah Lokhorst.

I searched her out on Social media. Here ́s her Twitter account -

Instrument Science Research Associate at National Research Council Canada. Member of the Dragonfly Telephoto Array team, pianist, hiker, avid reader.

I began to follow her there, and thought it might be interesting for one of the perhaps no more than 5,000 Plasketts to mention the route that brought me to her. Dragonfly Telephoto Array - Wikipedia

The following day, April 10th 2024, I logged in to Twitter to find a  message awaiting me from a Josh Green 

Dear Mr Plaskett, Hope all is well with you. I'm a development executive at Dragonfly (part of Banijay UK). Dragonfly is one of the world's leading specialists in multi-award winning documentaries and factual programmes for all major UK and international broadcasters from BBC to Netflix. ... ... ... For more information, please see our website: dragonfly.tv. Kind regards, Josh
Apr 9, 2024, 6:28 PM

Seems the  ́messaging ́ aspect of Twitter had, very soon prior to this message being sent, altered, and it had now become possible for those who were not being followed by an individual to request to send them a message accompanied by the option of having it read.
Therefore this request from Josh Green had rested, unopened, overnight... so each Dragonfly became known to me on Tuesday April 9th 2024.

I had to regard it as confirmation of how I had concluded my e mail to Bill Hartston the day before -

́Neverthess, I sense, other things are moving into position...´

Two Dragonfly projects linking with me on the same day caused me to believe it would be likely to lead to something. 

So on Wednesday April 10th 2024 I responded warmly to Josh Green and also tried to contact the current holder of the Plaskett Medal. 

I sent an e mail to projectdragonfly@icloud.com on Wednesday, 10 Apr at 23:49

And, later, a colleague of Dr Lokhurst kindly
supplied her e mail.

...   ...   ..
The other thing that happened on April 9th 2024 - the day when it registered to me that the winner of the Plaskett Medal in 2023 worked with the Dragonfly project  J.S. Plaskett Medal – CASCA 
was that David Hampton sent out a blanket invite at Facebook to 2,000 people, of whom I was one, inviting them to join a Group devoted to the ´Miraculous Medal´.
I had never heard of it.

But I joined.