A Tiny Universe
November 8, 2015
I’ve been thinking about microscopes a lot lately, due to my recent partnership with Celestron.
Celestron is well-known for their incredible astronomy equipment. Their social media feeds are filled with stunning images of the night sky. Nebulae. Galaxies. Planets. Moons. Looking to the universe is the inspirational stuff dreams are made of. My nephew is so captivated with space that at age 12 he has his whole life mapped out to maximize his chances of getting into the Air Force so that he can become an astronaut. He lives and breathes space and the endless possibilities there in.
This white-lined sphinx moth’s eye looks a bit like a planet. Image created with Celestron’s Micro Fi Digital Microscope.
Change Your View
I dream of the universe as well. But my dreams are a little different. I am captivated by the tiny universe under our feet. I dream about the world that is bustling, active and alive under my nose. In my teaching I call it “putting your small eyes on.” I discovered this phenomenon during my first entomology course. I was three weeks in to the semester and all of a sudden, I saw bugs everywhere. I would drift in and out of conversations because something flew by. I was walking down the sidewalk to the grocery store with the ants. Those girls were on an errand and so was I. It sounds strange, but insects started to land on me more often (I think I just noticed it more, like when you’re car shopping and all of a sudden you see the car you wanteverywhere.) Now my students tell me the same thing. They are late to class because they stopped to watch a yellow jacket grab a caterpillar and fly away with it. At parties they find themselves talking about bugs and listening to wings buzzing by as though they are the intended other-half of the conversation.
