Telescopes / Astronomy in films.

[gaelicstorm7]

Hi Guys, might be kinda off topic this one, if so admins please feel free to move.

Here goes

My beloved was watching a film the other day (Heartbreakers) and there was a guy in it who was an astrophotographer !, showed him using his scope and some views through it (HAH as if, but good for a laugh ), but got me thinking as to if what other films out there feature telescopes or astronomy/astronomers in them.

Armageddon - Guy who spots the asteroid heading towards Earth (don't know what scope he's using).

The Dish - Think if I remember right a couple of guys are watching an Apollo rocket heading towards the moon with a big SCT.

over to you lot, have fun !

Alan

There's a couple to get us going.

[Grant]

Not a film but still... on West Wing, a very pretty lady who works for NASA takes Josh out one night to look through a telescope, I'm pretty sure it was a computerised Meade type dealy, I think they even showed you some views of Mars....

Twas pretty cool

[GordonCopestake]

A lot of TV programs like horizon have astronomers sitting in their office or at home and on more than one occasion i saw a 70mm tasco refractor at the window. Amused me no end

[Ambermile]

Anyone remember the CI5 episode with the 4 1/2" newtonian they were using for surveillance? They had it pointing the wrong way and were looking through the finder

Arthur

[anthony]

Contact - radio telescope

Was the dish the one with the Austrailian crew and the lunar landings?

Anthony

[StarMan1701]

Star Trek: First Contact - Geordie LaForge and Zephram Cochrane use a very thinly disguised Meade SCT to look at the Enterprise... I kid you not.

Lee.

[GazOC]

Frasier had a refractor in his apartment.

[Kain]

Not sure what scopes they were using, but in the film Deep Impact you see some kids at a star party, having astronomy lessions, which is when one of the kids spots the comet.

Kain

[GazOC]

I saw an afternoon TV movie about meteors about to hit the Earth where a professional astronomer was using his scope in a conservatory through a closed window.

[Jamie]

I saw an afternoon TV movie about meteors about to hit the Earth where a professional astronomer was using his scope in a conservatory through a closed window.

Maybe the conservatory had ED or fpl53 glass.........

[The Warthog]

Not a film but still... on West Wing, a very pretty lady who works for NASA takes Josh out one night to look through a telescope, I'm pretty sure it was a computerised Meade type dealy, I think they even showed you some views of Mars....

Twas pretty cool

I saw that one. I was about an 11" SCT with goto. I want one of those - it can show you stuff that hasn't risen above the horizon yet!

On the Canadian comedy "Corner Gas" Wanda gets herself a telescope to look for a comet, I believe. It looks like a nice SN8. She puts a diagonal into it, and looks along the tube, instead of into the tube, like everyone else does. Not impossilbe, I suppose, but I've never seen anyone do it.

A lot of yuppies have telescopes in their living rooms, as decoration.

[orion f6.3]

Tomb Raider, the massif refractor

[mike bacanin]

remember curly watts in coronation street with the rooftop observatory?

also Joey, in the spin off from friends, had a little refractor set up in the lounge.

[geppetto]

Wallace and Gromit Grand Day Out film.

The robot thingy on the moon has a telescope

in its drawer to scan for troublemakers

[Andrew]

Roxanne (Steve Martin & Daryl Hannah) - She was an astronomer (doesn't she look just like everyone you meet while observing!)

[Ambermile]

Doctor Who. Last first series, big refractor... *wicked* brass gears and knobs

Arthur

[Greg]

Golden Eye,

Bond ended up fighting the baddie on a giant radio telescope array....Sean Bean.

[gaelicstorm7]

Dr Who, so thats where you got the idea for the 22" Arthur , next thing ambermile will be making cybermen

Alan

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Doctor Who. Last first series, big refractor... *wicked* brass gears and knobs

Arthur

But it wasn't a telescope, it was a doodah to mess up the werevampirie things. I had thought that it wouldn't count bcause of that.

My kids stood back when the castle was revealed and their dad went "kennel, look at that fracking thing" all out of nowhere. He was gagging to fix it up and make it work, I could tell just by watching him.

But really, us adults don't watch these childish things do we.

Captain Chaos

[gaelicstorm7]

nah corse not, someone told me about it onest guv

Alan

[The Warthog]

Come to think of it, I saw a "Peter Gunn" a few months ago, made in about 1956, in which Gunn's snitch had about a 60mm frac on the rooftop of his Manhattan apartment. I know that some people do that, even in Manhattan.

[Zermelo]

Time to revive a very old thread.
We've just watched the 2018 film, Harmony. It turned out to be oddball, feelgood, supernatural hokum, but one scene featured a rather tasty long refractor in a dome observatory.
Google has failed to provide the identity of said scope, though apparently everything was filmed in Australia.
Does anyone know what it was?

[jjohnson3803]

Also not a film, but I'm in the middle of an old "Midsomer Murders" episode with professional and amateur astronomers in it.  They filmed some on location at a professional and also an amateur obsy .  There are a few blatant errors, but it's surprisingly good.  I only laughed out loud once.  😁

"Big Bang Theory" frequently has a small scope in the background - either a refractor or a Celestron go-to.

 

[Ceramus]

"INVADERS FROM MARS", 1950'S B-movie (probably the very first film I ever saw). The kid had a small scope with which he saw the spaceship land and his dad was an astronomer with a proper telescope in his observatory. Seen it a few more times since.

[jacko61]

In Contact, a young Ellie and her dad are about to watch a meteor shower through a pair of refractors when he dies suddenly. 

and Tony Stark has a big celestron Reflector in his house (which unfortunately looks out towards Los Angeles - Bortle 20 maybe)

Graeme