Beautiful Queen Charlotte Telescope

[Sunshine]

While I was out observing last night my wife opened the back door and said excitedly “Eddie come look at this telescope on tv!” it turns out she started a new show on Netflix called Queen Charlotte, the costumes are stunning i should mention, but the telescope is beautiful. In the story the King of England is passionate about astronomy and he has a gorgeous observatory, the telescope is HUGE! and sits onna tripod and not a pier 😂 a massive wood tripod.

https://mangostone.org/the-kings-telescope

Edited March 8 by Sunshine

[JeremyS]

48 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

While I was out observing last night my wife opened the back door and said excitedly “Eddie come look at this telescope on tv!” it turns out she started a new show on Netflix called Queen Charlotte, the costumes are stunning i should mention, but the telescope is beautiful. In the story the King of England is passionate about astronomy and he has a gorgeous observatory, the telescope is HUGE! and sits onna tripod and not a pier 😂 a massive wood tripod.

https://mangostone.org/the-kings-telescope

You said a beautiful scope…..i was expecting at least an FS 128 or TSA 102!

[Mr Spock]

Designed by someone who's never seen a telescope before 

[tomato]

You beat me to it Michael. I was about to ask where is the pinion for that rather impressive circular rack? Looks like a product of AI design software, got the flavour but no engineering principles evident.

[Sunshine]

18 minutes ago, tomato said:

You beat me to it Michael. I was about to ask where is the pinion for that rather impressive circular rack? Looks like a product of AI design software, got the flavour but no engineering principles evident.

Agreed, i didn’t think it was functional, i was also trying to figure out what made contact with those huge teeth on that half moon gear. Very pretty, though.

[Sunshine]

2 hours ago, JeremyS said:

You said a beautiful scope…..i was expecting at least an FS 128 or TSA 102!

How about now? 

[JOC]

I was wondering about the functionality of the finderscope too.  In fact the whole screen shots look like AI, including the actors!

[michael8554]

The room looks like the King's Observatory at Kew.

Commissioned in 1769 by King George III, who was interested in astronomy.

To observe the Transit of Venus, predicted to occur that year.

https://www.kingsobservatory.co.uk/

Michael

Edited March 10 by michael8554

[PXR5]

Wow! First time I heard of this (I don't watch much TV).

 

I used to live in the Queen City of Charlotte, NC USA 

I'll have to check in with my old club buddies at the Charlotte Amateur Astronomy Club.

[Ags]

It is annoying that a functional equatorial mount would have been beautiful and, most importantly, not wrong.

 

[badhex]

There are so many beautiful vintage scopes still in existence in historical observatories it makes you wonder why they didn't just design one in the same style, but it is impressive nonetheless that they did actually build a real prop (aside from the aforementioned functionality issues). 

Funnily enough I was watching Star Trek Discovery last night and in the very first episode they resort to using a telescope due to sensor interference. Looks to me like a 'weathered' Skywatcher/Orion achro, probably the 90/660 on a modified AZ3, along with the supplied 45° prism diagonal and super MA EP. 

I love the idea of a super advanced spacecraft and the only optical scope on board is a budget achro 😂

[Peter Drew]

All viewers will recognise it as being a telescope, that would have been the criterion.  I guess that AI has not yet used a telescope.     🙂

[JeremyS]

15 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

All viewers will recognise it as being a telescope, that would have been the criterion.  I guess that AI has not yet used a telescope.     🙂

I didn’t know Criterion sold refractors. I always recall their S&T ads for their 6-inch Dynascope. And then there was the Dynamax….

😊

Edited March 10 by JeremyS

[Rusted]

 All that glisters.. The alleged prop would have a wilful desire to head nose up or tail up entirely at random. The geometry is terrifying! The absence of a humble cog only the last straw. In the battle for damages. When the heroin is summarily decapitated and then catapulted out of the nearest window by said prop.

 There used to be saying that authors should write only about what they know. To avoid hideous and hilarious mistakes transparent to all those in the know. Somehow the entertainment arts have forgotten this solemn lesson. Wilful ignorance is only the least of their sins.

 They had only to ask the local photography shop for expert advice. To avoid the zillionaire, bent on world domination. From performing with a cast-off from the props department. More reminiscent of the finest wares in the 10p jumble tub. At the local, backstreet, charity shop. 🙃

[Peter Drew]

I can see the problem now, when the author contacted AI for the design he/she also left the "e" off the end of heroine, this confused AI.      🙂

[Mr Spock]

The Star Trek telescope was Georgiou's family heirloom; she, Saru and Burnham used the scope to get a visual on an unidentified object. It was passed on to Burnham in Georgiou's will.

[Sunshine]

On 10/03/2024 at 08:35, badhex said:

they resort to using a telescope due to sensor interference.

Were the next words out of the spotters mouth…”captain! I have a visual on the craft, it seems to have it’s shields on, there’s a glowing blue and red halo aroud it” 😂

Edited March 11 by Sunshine

[Ratlet]

6 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

The Star Trek telescope was Georgiou's family heirloom; she, Saru and Burnham used the scope to get a visual on an unidentified object. It was passed on to Burnham in Georgiou's will.

I'll guarantee that they did that because they knew someone would have a moan about the scope used lol.

[JOC]

The Star-trek telescope above is also setup correctly and being used the correct way around - which is rare in TV shows.

[bosun21]

27 minutes ago, JOC said:

The Star-trek telescope above is also setup correctly and being used the correct way around - which is rare in TV shows.

Yes, the numerous times where I have seen reflector telescopes pointing at the ground still causes me to draw a sigh 😔. I can sort of understand why this happens though, due to the laymans assumption of what a telescope looks like.

[Sunshine]

1 hour ago, bosun21 said:

Yes, the numerous times where I have seen reflector telescopes pointing at the ground still causes me to draw a sigh 😔. I can sort of understand why this happens though, due to the laymans assumption of what a telescope looks like.

That is one thing, and understandable, but when I worked in a telescope shop in my early twenties I recall the Discovery Channel Canada Walking into my store amd asking for an impressive looking telescope as a background prop for their daily science show. At the time we had a few Meade Starfinder EQ’s on the showroom floor and they really liked them, I sold them the 10” if I recall. A week later while watching the program  i noticed the front was pointing at the ground, right at the ground, the scope was between amd behind both hosts, it looked awful! this was a science program. You can bet I was on the phone the next day calling their offices, they didn’t see what the big deal was.

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, Sunshine said:

That is one thing, and understandable, but when I worked in a telescope shop in my early twenties I recall the Discovery Channel Canada Walking into my store amd asking for an impressive looking telescope as a background prop for their daily science show. At the time we had a few Meade Starfinder EQ’s on the showroom floor and they really liked them, I sold them the 10” if I recall. A week later while watching the program  i noticed the front was pointing at the ground, right at the ground, the scope was between amd behind both hosts, it looked awful! this was a science program. You can bet I was on the phone the next day calling their offices, they didn’t see what the big deal was.

You worked in a telescope shop??? Sounds like a dream job. 

[Ags]

Sounds like a very expensive job.

[bosun21]

1 hour ago, Sunshine said:

I sold them the 10” if I recall.

That's the salesman in you. Well done, and I'm pretty sure that an 80mn achromat didn't even enter your mind 😂.

[badhex]

13 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

The Star Trek telescope was Georgiou's family heirloom; she, Saru and Burnham used the scope to get a visual on an unidentified object. It was passed on to Burnham in Georgiou's will.

As the adoptive brother of Burnham you would know that 🙂

I haven't actually got that far in the series yet; when it came out I lived in Germany so my options for half the dialogue were either Klingon or German, neither of which were particularly conducive to following the plot 😂