1247 replies to this topic

[Bonco]

Just watched Harper yesterday. While Paul Newman is walking through  a mansion there is what looks like a 60mm equitorial Swift parked by a picture window.

Bill

[NC Startrekker]

I watched the documentary film "Valley Uprising" about the golden era (1955-1970) of rock climbing in Yosemite National Park. There is a shot of a guy using a Questar from the valley floor to scout out a route. I couldn't definitively tell but believe it was a field model. It was not forked and was being used on a photo tripod. Alan

[Terra Nova]

Watching Bonanza today on MeTV, our over the air classic TV channel. The episode is about the early education of a youthful Albert A. Michelson, the first physicist to win the Nobel Prize (1907) for his experiments in optics, spectroscopy, and the speed of light, and discoverer of the Micholson effect. The episode is entitled "Look To The Stars" and begins with his observations of the sun from the roof of a building in Virginia City. He is using a refractor he built himself that looks like a shortish 4" on an alt-az yoke mount.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0529603/

Edited by terraclarke, 16 March 2017 - 01:34 PM.

[starman876]

You guys better keep an eye on our goverment.  Life might end as we know it if they have their way.

[highfnum]

thanks for tip on dennis the menace "innocents in space"
saw it last night
yup ill bet a bag of donuts
that's a 4 inch unitron

nice they had a fast clip of actual solar image
for a moment

the scope was shown for quite a bit

[Terra Nova]

Yep! You might enjoy this article:

 

http://astronomer.pr...n-dennis-menace

 

It was a model 152, just like this one:

Attached Thumbnails

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[TOM KIEHL]

I think Ole Bomber Bob could ID this scope .  About 19 sec. into this movie preview of  Days of Heaven.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=duZBG5TdfI0

 

http://alag3.mfa.kfk...s of Heaven.jpg

Edited by TOM KIEHL, 18 March 2017 - 12:32 PM.

[Steve C.]

My wife and I binged on SMALLVILLE earlier this year. Clark Kent had a refractor that showed up in a number of episodes.

 

http://astronomer.pr...actor-telescope

 

The polar axis was set at varying latitudes over the course of the series. At one time he must have been observing from Costa Rica.

[Terra Nova]

I think Ole Bomber Bob could ID this scope .  About 19 sec. into this movie preview of  Days of Heaven.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=duZBG5TdfI0

I really do like that movie! It is beautifully filmed! It reminded me so much of books by Willa Cather like Oh Pioneers, Edna Ferber's So Big, and Giant, and Steinbeck's East of Eden. It really is a masterpeace of cinematography, it is sooo beautifully filmed. But it has such a dark plot! I really need to see it again! I had totally forgotten about that telescope scene! Thank you for reminding me that I need to spend more time reading again!

[donlism]

If it's permissable to bend the rules a tad, and include a 400mm f/5.6 prime focus camera lens being used as a telescope, then we can't forget Hitchcock's "Rear Window."

 

(I believe the movie was about a giant invisible rabbit loose somewhere in Washington -- not sure.)

[Bomber Bob]

I think Ole Bomber Bob could ID this scope .  About 19 sec. into this movie preview of  Days of Heaven.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=duZBG5TdfI0

 

http://alag3.mfa.kfk...s of Heaven.jpg

Well, it ain't a Mogey - the focuser is on the scope tube.  The mount resembles the MacKenzie, but lots of them did back then.  Oh!  Note the microscope.  I have a 1916 Spencer that's very similar.  It's a beauty, too!

[deSitter]

My wife and I binged on SMALLVILLE earlier this year. Clark Kent had a refractor that showed up in a number of episodes.

 

http://astronomer.pr...actor-telescope

 

The polar axis was set at varying latitudes over the course of the series. At one time he must have been observing from Costa Rica.

Looks like a circa 1990 Meade. The polar scope is missing. I guess finding Polaris without it isn't one of his super powers.

 

-drl

Edited by deSitter, 19 March 2017 - 01:05 PM.

[telescopeguy238]

 

My wife and I binged on SMALLVILLE earlier this year. Clark Kent had a refractor that showed up in a number of episodes.

 

http://astronomer.pr...actor-telescope

 

The polar axis was set at varying latitudes over the course of the series. At one time he must have been observing from Costa Rica.

Looks like a circa 1990 Meade. The polar scope is missing. I guess finding Polaris without it isn't one of his super powers.

 

-drl

Clarks original scope was a Celestron C80 on a Alt az mount. It was only in a few episodes then it turned into a Celestron SP C80.  Clark's father told him early in the season (1) that his father gave the scope to him. Not! The scope was not that old. The scope in this clip was from season 10 and was probably not the earlier scope. Most likely someone was sent out to get a "similar" looking one as the one from earlier years was probably gone. All were 80mm scopes. The earlier SP C80 looked to be in great shape. I would love to have that scope.

[rolo]

 

My wife and I binged on SMALLVILLE earlier this year. Clark Kent had a refractor that showed up in a number of episodes.

 

http://astronomer.pr...actor-telescope

 

The polar axis was set at varying latitudes over the course of the series. At one time he must have been observing from Costa Rica.

Looks like a circa 1990 Meade. The polar scope is missing. I guess finding Polaris without it isn't one of his super powers.

 

-drl

 

Definitely a Celestron on a Superpolaris. It has the pivoting finder and is probably an 80mm.

[Mr Magoo]

Watching another old episode of "Men Into Space", episode name "Asteroid", original air date 11/25/1959. In several scenes in the beginning they use the 200" telescope at Palomar as a backdrop. I believe the very opening of of the episode also shows the opening of the mirror cover. Link to video: https://www.youtube....h?v=8EkXhZWvaHM

[Terra Nova]

Thanks Ken. I just watched it. That was a cool episode. I don't remember seeing that when I was a kid in Southern California in the 50s. We had a lot of those ZIV syndicated shows that I did watch- Sea Hunt, Highway Patrol, Rescue 8, Whirly Birds, etc, but I don't remember Men Into Space. My favorites were The Adventures of Superman, Sky King, Lassie, Science Fiction Theater, One Step Beyond, National Velvet, and Flicka.

[ftwskies]

Last season on DC Comics' "Legends of Tomorrow" I noticed what looked like a vintage scope in Rip Hunter's quarters aboard the Waverider, but could never get a clear shot of what it was.  This season they show it prominently and even include it in the storyline of one episode, and bummer -- it's an Indian harbormaster. 

[grif 678]

Anyone recognize the one on Mr Rogers, when King Friday was expecting HIS comet. Know it was a dept store one, looked like  60 mm.

[BrooksObs]

In Captain America - The First Avenger, if you look carefully, you'll very briefly catch sight of a pair of giant binoculars with 45* angled eyepieces just to the right of the huge panoramic window of Red Skull's mountain fortress as Captain America's buddies come crashing through it! The binoculars look to be either WWII vintage German 20x100 or 25x105 type, which would be appropriate to the film's supposed era. After the war the former binoculars were successfully employed at Skalnate Pleso Observatory between 1946 and 1959 by Czech astronomers Mrkos, Pajdusakova, Kresak, et al in the only professional visual comet hunting program ever conducted.

 

BrooksObs

Edited by BrooksObs, 28 April 2017 - 07:20 PM.

[David P]

Yerkes Observatory was used as one of the settings in 1996's Chain Reaction.

[BrooksObs]

Hi folks,
I have started a thread on this subject before, and I can remember some thing looking Unitrons displayed in Jerry Lewis "Way...Way out" (1966). Also a refractor in "I dream of Jeannie" series.
An whole observatory in Robert Stack and Lauren Bacall "The gift of love" (1958)
If astronomical binoculars counts too, Jodie Foster's binoculars in "Contact" (1997).

This observatory/instrument would appear to be the Carnegie 20-inch Double Astrograph, located at the Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton. That real instrument is truly massive in size, so a roughly 1/2 scale image of it placed in the scene's background is what serves as Robert Stack's impressively equipped private observatory seen 15 minutes into the 1958 movie "The Gift of Love".

 

BrooksObs

[BrooksObs]

If not mentioned previously, I notice that there is a momentary glimpse of what looks to perhaps be a 3" f/15 refractor in the background at a window in Bill Murray's office in the movie "Scrooged" in the scene where Murray is being hunted down by a co-worker with a shotgun.

 

BrooksObs

[droid]

If any of yall are fans of the "Supernatural" series, theres a rather large blue scope in almost every episode the last season, appears to be turn of the century?

[BrooksObs]

Yet another movie telescope is seen for just a moment in Friends with Benefits in a scene taking place in Justin Timberlake's California family's seaside home. Its visibility is limited in a pan shot, but it looks like possibly a 100mm Sky-Watcher equatorial refractor.

 

A careful attentive eye suggests that, although few story lines actually address such instruments, a great many movies and TV programs do/did contained glimpses of modest telescopes included as a part of the background scene.

 

BrooksObs

[celestronlover57]

Forgive me if I mention a telescope that was previously named, but there were so many posts, I may have missed it.  In the 5th season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in an episode called "The Inner Light", Picard uses a Dobsonian telescope.  Not sure of the make.  At the time of this episode Dobsonians were very popular.