kucharek
2002-Jun-18, 09:25 AM
By chance, I watched this weekend the last half of the movie "House of Cards"
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0107148
Some girl who's father died in an accident was told that he now lives on the Moon
(that reminds a little of the story about Apollo 14 astronaut Stu Roosa who visited Nepal and was asked by the kids about the Moon. He told them that it is dead and nothing is there. The children were pretty disturbed and later Roosa learnt, that the Nepalese believe that their dead ancestors live on the Moon) she becomes autistic and does strange things.
Her mother builds a tower (a spiral way leading upwards) like one her daughter built from cards.
Now the Bad Astronomy:
-One night, she stands in the center of the spiral and looking upwards, the full moon is directly above her.
It was too late in the movie that I could find out where it took place, but some internet sources say North Carolina. As I learnt from my Jules Verne, the Moon can be only in the zenith in Florida or Texas in the U.S. (I guess, when Verne wrote his book, Hawaii was not part of the U.S.)
-Sometimes, the Moon is a narrow crecent, but in the zenith and it is totally dark night. If the moon is a crescent, the angle to the Sun must be less than 90 degrees and when the Moon is in the zenith, the sun must be above the horizon and it can't be night.
-The diameter of the Moon is always much too large. The tower may be 30 or 40 meters high and the opening some 3 or 4 meters which roughly gives an opening angle of some 6 degrees, so the Moon would be just 1/12 of this. But in the movie it just fits into the opening with some border.
It's not clear in the movie if these scenes are "real" or just "dreams" or "phantasie",
so it also could be not Bad Astronomy but artistic license.
Harald
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kucharek on 2002-06-18 08:42 ]</font>
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0107148
Some girl who's father died in an accident was told that he now lives on the Moon
(that reminds a little of the story about Apollo 14 astronaut Stu Roosa who visited Nepal and was asked by the kids about the Moon. He told them that it is dead and nothing is there. The children were pretty disturbed and later Roosa learnt, that the Nepalese believe that their dead ancestors live on the Moon) she becomes autistic and does strange things.
Her mother builds a tower (a spiral way leading upwards) like one her daughter built from cards.
Now the Bad Astronomy:
-One night, she stands in the center of the spiral and looking upwards, the full moon is directly above her.
It was too late in the movie that I could find out where it took place, but some internet sources say North Carolina. As I learnt from my Jules Verne, the Moon can be only in the zenith in Florida or Texas in the U.S. (I guess, when Verne wrote his book, Hawaii was not part of the U.S.)
-Sometimes, the Moon is a narrow crecent, but in the zenith and it is totally dark night. If the moon is a crescent, the angle to the Sun must be less than 90 degrees and when the Moon is in the zenith, the sun must be above the horizon and it can't be night.
-The diameter of the Moon is always much too large. The tower may be 30 or 40 meters high and the opening some 3 or 4 meters which roughly gives an opening angle of some 6 degrees, so the Moon would be just 1/12 of this. But in the movie it just fits into the opening with some border.
It's not clear in the movie if these scenes are "real" or just "dreams" or "phantasie",
so it also could be not Bad Astronomy but artistic license.
Harald
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kucharek on 2002-06-18 08:42 ]</font>