So anyone keeping up? specifically when the fleet jump in in the last episode?

Nice visual clues to their location

Link here. dont look if you dont want any series spoilers. en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Image:Orion_belt.jpg !!!!

Its nerdy but I was totally excited when I saw (Spoiler:) Orion in the background!!

Best sci-fi in the last 10 years IMO.

Ran into that big spoiler over on Cloudy Nights. Downloaded the ep on Saturday but hadn't had a chance to watch it yet.

Wow - your second "legit" Galactica message got nuked too! Got to hand it to the "Topic Stazi" - they're efficient!! The sign of a really effective dictatorship is that when you disappear, you stay disappeared!

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.

You mean the episode last week??, I didn't notice the starfield, what did you notice ?? IF you mean the one this week, don't spoil it for us, it hasn't been shown yet. :shock:

They're on to you Phil, they're watching! :twisted:

It's weird, but I haven't quite got into the new Battlestar Galactica yet. Probably because I don't have Sky! Still, give me the original series any day.

Thanks Phil - heres the last post that got nuked

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

Maybe you should use Starry night and fly around the place to see just how far
is too far!

It's pretty far!

Maybe you should use Starry night and fly around the place to see just how far
is too far!

It's pretty far!

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

400au, surely the sun is kinda obvious and oh look, some nice big planets and whats this high frequency transmission they say to themselves as they tune into Jerry Springer.

IIRC in the original series "The night the Cylons landed" they more crash than land on the outskirts of Los Angeles and have to hitch a ride to the city. They end up sharing a cab with DJ Wolf-Man Jack (in a cameo appearance!) and end up at a fancy-dress party. There might be wierder ways of invading a planet... but I can't think of any!!

Good old fashioned 1970's felgercarb!

Phil.

PS - Jerry Springer was still a pimply faced youth back then!

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!

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

For anyone interested in seeing what we're all talking about (don't worry no spoilers).

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.

For anyone interested in seeing what we're all talking about (don't worry no spoilers).

Fairly big spoiler in the foreground

Seanie I'll loan you my copy of the pilot show on Tuesday night.

Cheers John, I'll keep an open mind. Now, if they do it to Buck Rogers I won't be too happy! I don't think you'd get a decent Twiki volunteer be available freezing their ball bearings off...

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.

Never much got into the new series, remember the old series well enough that was broadcast in the late seventies and early eighties. I remember that Galactica had this weird kid that dressed in a shiny white outfit that just sat around all day, looked liked the milky bar kid with an IQ of 1000+. Frack, don’t tell me they have the same character in the new series!

Clear skies
Mike

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?

Hay! I've just dusted off an old video tape recording of the original BSG film - Lorne Green, Wilfred Hyde White, Face (from the A-Team!) and a whole cast of other B-movie almost-rans!! I'm gonna watch it tonight for old time's sake... if I can figure out how to use the video machine-thingy (why isn't there a kid around when you need one!)

Phil.
(showing his age... and acting his shoe size!)

Ah yes, Orion and the hyades cluster are easily seen!

Guys you spoiled the episode for me. Spent so long waiting to see where Orion was in the show that I paid next to no attention to the plot. Finally saw all of about 2 seconds of Orion.

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 Bit hard to plot a 3D course on a 2D map.

And we're all cylons anyway

sounds like you were right, well done Al!

Orion was there again last week, they must be nearby :shock: