LOL. First, thanks for giving me a new term to look up: zone plate.
Maybe I'm cutting you slack because I know much of your imagery and I like it, and I know you know full well what you're doing. I can't swear I'd vote this highly. However, now I don't need to bother separating out what I know, so I'll just say it's a fun image and it captures a cat's "science" perfectly. :)
And congrats on a 2.6+ difference in score between avg. and commenters, especially since that includes a couple of commenters who clearly didn't like it!
Wow, don't apologise, this is fantastic! The way the stark black/white contrast melts into the faded image of the cat... fantastic sense of proportion, awesome stuff.