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Horizon Special - Transit Of Venus


andrew63

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The info on my V+ box says its visible with the naked eye at 11pm ! not blimmin likely - unless you live in the Ukraine, but then you won't be a Virgin subscriber...

Good prog though - so far at least - my kids'll get the most out of it.

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Just finished watching, thought it very poor.

More like an excuse for the presenters to jet round the world.

The key historical points of the 1769 transit were glossed over, ie mentioned the black drop but gave no explanation of it's cause and gave minimal treatment of the mathematics involved.

There were a number of items that needed a more in depth look.

Still I suppose we should be grateful that we had anything.

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Just finished watching, thought it very poor.

More like an excuse for the presenters to jet round the world.

The key historical points of the 1769 transit were glossed over, ie mentioned the black drop but gave no explanation of it's cause and gave minimal treatment of the mathematics involved.

There were a number of items that needed a more in depth look.

Still I suppose we should be grateful that we had anything.

I see your point, but the programme is aimed at the general audience, and complexities such as the mathematics behind parallax or explanation of the black drop effect might not have interested or been understood by many. They're foremost goal is to make it entertaining to all, which perhaps explains their less concentrated, more wider view on the matter and related matters.

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I see your point, but the programme is aimed at the general audience, and complexities such as the mathematics behind parallax or explanation of the black drop effect might not have interested or been understood by many. They're foremost goal is to make it entertaining to all, which perhaps explains their less concentrated, more wider view on the matter and related matters.

Fair comment.

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I see your point, but the programme is aimed at the general audience, and complexities such as the mathematics behind parallax or explanation of the black drop effect might not have interested or been understood by many. They're foremost goal is to make it entertaining to all, which perhaps explains their less concentrated, more wider view on the matter and related matters.

I think the problem is that these in depth science/engineering issues are being avoided in all aspects of the media. If we were talking about "Tomorrows World" or just a news story then fair enough, but we're not. Horizon is as 'in depth' as the BBC gets. Frankly I think it's the BBC producers that don't understand the maths and are dragging the rest of the general public down to their level, when in fact the typical viewer of Horizon could run rings around the producers.

Derek

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Was it a repeat from earlier last week? The way it ended with advice about how to view the transit was a bit odd if not. If you don't have all your necessary equipment in place now, like a solar telescope that can see through heavy cloud for instance, then it's a bit late innit? Unless the local Shell garage does a new line in solar viewing glasses?

Looking like the best place is going to be the interweb then.

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Mostly interesting I thought, though the CGI bits with solar system models appearing from Liz Bonnin's hands were hideously naff and the production team should be ashamed of themselves for those. Shame they didn't talk about some of the other people who were attempting to record the Venus transit, but at least they did explain why they wanted to do so. A few diagrams could have helped to visualise the maths there I think, even if they didn't go into it in depth. I was fascinated by the idea of analysing the signals for analysis of the Venusian atmosphere by detecting them as they bounce off the moon. Quite an astonishing idea and warranted a bit more coverage. Good choice of presenters in Lucie Green who clearly knows her stuff because she's a solar scientist, and Helen Czerski, who I think has quite an infectious enthusiasm for science even outside her "specialist subject". Unfortunately I do struggle to engage with Liz Bonnin. It's grossly unfair to her I know, but she does come across as "a presenter who knows a bit of science" rather than "a scientist who does a bit of presentation".

Not as hard core science as some Horizon programmes, but generally fairly good, I reckon.

James

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Although I can understand why they didn't go too complicated with the maths and science, I felt they spoke too much about finding life on Venus and other side tracked subjects.

I think they missed the trick here, they could/should have concerntrated on how people were going to watch the transit, amateur societies, public etc, aswell as the more understandable but relevant science behind the transit.

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Fair comment.

snapback.pngAzure, on 05 June 2012 - 10:19 PM, said:

I see your point, but the programme is aimed at the general audience, and complexities such as the mathematics behind parallax or explanation of the black drop effect might not have interested or been understood by many. They're foremost goal is to make it entertaining to all, which perhaps explains their less concentrated, more wider view on the matter and related matters.

Fair comment.

No not fair comment. We rarely get anything on the TV that challenges the audience. All we ever get is a 1 hour program with 5 minutes of content with lots of very nice photography.

Why do always have to be 'entertained', how about being educated at least once in a while...?

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I watched the transit in 2004, which was much more favourable for the UK, but I don't recall the BBC giving it much coverage then - let alone a whole "pop sci" programme. How typical of them to spend more time promoting the "repeat" than the original ;)

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I reckon Sir Patrick in his younger years could have fitted all this info into a 10 minute talk without the need for CGI, trips to the tops of mountains or below glaciers :grin: Sign of the times I spose, tv folk think the only way of getting anything sciency subjects across these days is to jazz it up and spend fortunes on effects and just gloss over the surface of the subject.

I was a little dissappointed in the program as it was pretty basic and tended to get distracted with finding life etc but I wont knock it too much because anything like this is a good spark for getting folk interested.

philj

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