Over the moon for team Science Oxford selfies

Have you seen the moon-selfie viral craze taking over social media this week? “Take a selfie through a toilet roll and pretend you’re the moon.” is the premise, where you turn yourself into the man in the moon Georges Melies style, (La Voyage Dans La Lune being the first film ever made in 1902 – as parodied by avant garde comedian Noel Fielding in The Mighty Boosh) – with “mildly funny results” (Bored Panda). And it’s not as easy as it sounds..

Here at Science Oxford HQ we’re looking forward to a year celebrating the 1969 Moon Landing, with a galaxy of fun space-themed activities across our events, workshops, Saturday Clubs and more. So when our Digital Comms officer Autumn Neagle (still heady from the success of ‘Wear Your Christmas Jumper to Work Day’ which reached top social media engagement in December), spotted an opportunity for our team to join in with a fun lunar-centric activity, she was over-the-moon!

Of course, being a bunch of scientists, nothing was as straight-forward as all that .. so after much deducing, investigation and trial and error, have a look at our team’s moon-faced efforts, pet selfies and all.

Our Events Manager Rowena reports back; “As it turns out, the science behind how the moon-down-a-toilet-roll-tube works is important. Given the relative darkness of the inside of the tube, the camera overcompensates on your face, making it look very bright, with the sinister glow of a celestial body.

However, we buy recycled toilet paper from the social enterprise “Who gives a crap?”

The insides of their toilet paper rolls are white. So they might be good for the environment, but they’re not so good for taking moon pictures (see “Moon fail”).

Never mind, a rolled up piece of black foam later, I have an alternative. But it doesn’t give quite as much of a glow as a conventional tube, gives a somewhat wonky moon, and leaves a very dark and starless night sky.”

Rowena Fletcher Wood, Events Officer

 

Iris (the cat) and Kipper (the dog) also contributed.

 

Which is your favourite? Why not have a go, and tweet, Facebook or Instagram us your moon-selfie @scienceoxford .. It’s ‘crate-r’ fun..