Sounds like a good movie to skip. Unfortunately, there will be people in
department stores looking for scopes to give them the same view of M1.

Clear Skies

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/

Are you interested in understanding optics?
Try http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ATM_Optics_Software/

************************************

"Martin R. Howell" wrote in message
news

Shot in April thru August of 2000, this movie stars Sigourney Weaver and
Jennifer Love Hewitt who falls in love with an amateur astronomer/bar
owner/potential millionaire played by Jason Lee. Just shy of an hour into
the film, the viewer will find Jason and Jennifer on a dark beach where
what appears to be a Celestron 4" refractor is set up. When she inquires
into what he looks at through it, he directs her to the eyepiece where he
tells her the Crab Nebula awaits. She looks through the little refractor
and is rewarded with a beautiful, technicolor view of Messier 1. . .blue,
green, gold, and red are all in abundance. Then he mentions the globular
cluster Messier 13 and directs her to look through the eyepiece again and
without any apparent movement ot the scope she once more takes to the
eyepiece. Now she sees an oval shaped mess which displays perfectly
evenly
spaced and identically sized clods of stars from edge to edge. It looked
like a sketch drawn by a lousy artist.

The scene ends shortly after he produces a piece of paper and while
glancing at it remarks that perhaps Corona Borealis is visible.

It would seem to me that Jason Lee got far more than his money's worth out
of the scope on Messier 1 and far less than his money's worth on Messier
13. Hopefully, he realized that the scope wasn't necessary to view Corona
Borealis.


;o) ;o) ;o)


--
Martin R. Howell
"Photographs From the Universe of Amateur Astronomy"
http://members.isp.com/universeofama...nomy%40isp.com