Moon Bound

Oriental Magpie-Robn Hainan, China

When I went to China on a business trip for the International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) I of course brought my camera. I birded as much as I could on the resort grounds where I found these birds all over the place.  But I’d never seen one so I was as happy as a baby bird being fed a worm.  

The thing that jumps out most in my memory from this trip is that Merlin Sound ID only recognized about 33% of the birds it heard.  That little blue dot that says it hears birds was flashing away like a Christmas tree light, but it returned almost no hits.  I wonder if they have their own version of Merlin.

Speaking of ILOA, you are probably wondering why the title of this post is Moon Bound.  I’m on the ILOA Board of Directors and our mission is to put an astronomical observatory on the Moon.  We were selected by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) to put a camera prototype on the Chang’E-7 lunar lander mission, and it’s launching tonight around 7:00pm CT!  

You can stream the launch live here: https://www.youtube.com/live/71j2GwcT3D0

Read more about our mission here: https://iloa.org/ilo-c-on-change-7-lunar-lander/

And you can see my smiling face on the ILOA Board of Directors here: https://iloa.org/about-us/

Wish us luck!