
Battlestar Galactica
- albertw
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Battlestar Galactica was created by albertw
Nice visual clues to their location

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- fguihen
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Replied by fguihen on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
Its nerdy but I was totally excited when I saw (Spoiler:) Orion in the background!!
Best sci-fi in the last 10 years IMO.
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- Calibos
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Replied by Calibos on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica

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- philiplardner
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Replied by philiplardner on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica


Aparantly the Simpsons are in deep do-do in Argintina for making that quip - Los Simpsoni got taken off the air. It might also have something to do with saying that Juan Peron's wife was called Madonna!!!!
Guess this thread is for the chop too... Viva la Revolution!
Phil Guvara.
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- dave_lillis
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Replied by dave_lillis on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
They're on to you Phil, they're watching! :twisted:
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- Seanie_Morris
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Replied by Seanie_Morris on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
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- albertw
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Replied by albertw on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica

Dave, yea this is the latest one. The description below doesn't give any spoilers I hope but does tell you what to look for.
Seanie - the new version is cool. go download it. It took me a while to get to like it, but once you get used to Starbuck its great!
Hi,
It seems my topic earlier on this was a little too obscure and the mods got rid of it. But I was posting about astronomy! Honest! Let me explain. Hopefully without spoilers!
At a certain point in this weekends episode you see some ships 'jump' into an areas of space. The goal of all the ships is to find Earth but so far they have not had much luck. Trust me the plot is much better than that!
Anyway this week the ships jump in and instead of the usual apparent random scattering of stars we have the very recognisable pattern of Orion. This isn't commented on in any dialogue but its a nice clue to those who recognise the odd constellation. The camera then pans up and you can see Taurus and looking at the still you can see that most of the stars in the area do match with reality.
This however leads to another question. If they see the stars as we do, how close are they to Earth? Sure they can see Orion and Taurus but that only shows that they are on the same line of sight.
It turns out that parallax comes to help. Two of the stars in the field are relatively close to us. Aldebaran at 65 ly and Pi3 Orion (one of the bow stars) at 26ly.
Now if you have your spaceship pointing at orion and put it in reverse these two stars very quickly start to loose their apparent position. Even at 5 light years out they are very far from where they should be. Actually even at 1ly they are obviously 'off'.
Thanks to it being hard to accurately measure angles on a TV screen its hard to say exactly whether they are in the inner solar system or not. But even allowing for a bit of error in the TV stills the location has to be within ~400au. So we can be fairly sure that the fleet of ships jumped into the solar system and so would know where Earth is.
Nice touch by the directors to put something like that in for the astro-geeks in the audience! And we're all cylons anyway

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- Frank Ryan
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Replied by Frank Ryan on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
is too far!
It's pretty far!
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- johnomahony
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Replied by johnomahony on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
Maybe you should use Starry night and fly around the place to see just how far
is too far!
It's pretty far!

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- albertw
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Replied by albertw on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
Maybe you should use Starry night and fly around the place to see just how far
is too far!
It's pretty far!
Thats where my lunch break went today

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- dave_lillis
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Replied by dave_lillis on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica

Chairman. Shannonside Astronomy Club (Limerick)
Carrying around my 20" obsession is going to kill me,
but what a way to go.

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- philiplardner
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Replied by philiplardner on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
Good old fashioned 1970's felgercarb!
Phil.
PS - Jerry Springer was still a pimply faced youth back then!

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- Seanie_Morris
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Replied by Seanie_Morris on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
400au, surely the sun is kinda obvious
Doubt it. PLuto itself is at aphelion about 49AU from the Sun, and at that distance only looks a little bigger and brighter than Venus from us at closest approach to Earth! Still, I haven't seen the episode in question... artistic licenses and all that!
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- albertw
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Replied by albertw on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
400au, surely the sun is kinda obvious
Doubt it. PLuto itself is at aphelion about 49AU from the Sun, and at that distance only looks a little bigger and brighter than Venus from us at closest approach to Earth! Still, I haven't seen the episode in question... artistic licenses and all that!
And that 400au is only the error I'm putting in thanks to my TV resolution

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- artyfarty
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Replied by artyfarty on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
www.flickr.com/photos/9671972@N08/2433990668/
Fantastic show I've loved every minute of it and it's WAY better the the original, Seanie I'll loan you my copy of the pilot show on Tuesday night.
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- albertw
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Replied by albertw on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
For anyone interested in seeing what we're all talking about (don't worry no spoilers).
Fairly big spoiler in the foreground

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- Seanie_Morris
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Replied by Seanie_Morris on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
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- dave_lillis
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Replied by dave_lillis on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
Good old fashioned 1970's felgercarb!
oh dear god, please don't tell me they find earth back in the 1970s again, BSG1980 was a disaster, between the ridiculous bikes and the idiot scout troop, it was barely watchable.
Chairman. Shannonside Astronomy Club (Limerick)
Carrying around my 20" obsession is going to kill me,
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- Mike
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Replied by Mike on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
Clear skies
Mike
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say; "I WANT TO SEE THE MANAGER".
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- BrianOHalloran
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Replied by BrianOHalloran on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
For anyone interested in seeing what we're all talking about (don't worry no spoilers).
Fairly big spoiler in the foreground![]()
What, they ended up at the Westlink, scrambling for change?

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- philiplardner
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Replied by philiplardner on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
Phil.
(showing his age... and acting his shoe size!)
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- dave_lillis
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Replied by dave_lillis on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
Chairman. Shannonside Astronomy Club (Limerick)
Carrying around my 20" obsession is going to kill me,
but what a way to go.

+ 12"LX200, MK67, Meade2045, 4"refractor
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- phoenix
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Replied by phoenix on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
I was more worried at Starbuck using sliderules, protractors etc on star charts. Ain't they got navigation computers or even there own Starry Night Pro version

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- fguihen
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Replied by fguihen on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica
And we're all cylons anyway
![]()
sounds like you were right, well done Al!
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- dave_lillis
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Replied by dave_lillis on topic Re: Battlestar Galactica

Chairman. Shannonside Astronomy Club (Limerick)
Carrying around my 20" obsession is going to kill me,
but what a way to go.

+ 12"LX200, MK67, Meade2045, 4"refractor
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