Bob Ames wrote:
"Kevin Rehberg" wrote:

Did anyone else that has seen it catch the crude refractor (it's
basically an objective and a couple other elements held together with
sticks)in the foreground of one of the Rivendel? You can only see it
for a total of about 5 seconds, but it's still nice to see some type of
astronomy equipment in one of the greatest movies of all time.

All of 5 seconds? Doesn't sound like a good movie to me. The last
movie I saw was 'Contact' in 1997. There were many shots of
telescopes, including Arecibo and the VLA for a significant portion
of the movie.

As a film featuring lots of (radio) astronomical equipment,
human struggle, and quirky personalities, I hope you get to see
"The Dish" some day.

A favorite scene is where, after one astronomer has
been filling a blackboard with hand-calculations of the lunar probe's
orbit so they can re-point the Parkes dish at it, the
(arrogant stuffed shirt) visitor points out that, after all,
it is well on its way to the moon and can't be more than a few
degrees from it. The moon is right out there in the sky, so can't
they just pick it up by sweeping? And they do.

Cheers

Stuart