Stargazing LIVE BBC2 8pm

ic1male said:
Nope, I'm not biting further. You can think what you want. I know who I am, thanks so you don't need to try and tell me.
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I'm no telling you who you are, just quoting your words, so you can stop playing semantics.

I accept your peculiar apology on behalf of the Irish Nation :p
 
iamtheoneneo said:
how mature are you? clearly not very...
apologies for listening in my science lessons at gcse and a-levels. what they explained in the show i watched was nothing short of KS4 education standards.
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How mature are you?
Not many people are educated to your level and asking my kids who are 23 & 21 they said they didn't do anything about Space when they were at school.
I certainly didn't back in the 70's.
The program wasn't made for you but people like me so you grow up.
 
iamtheoneneo said:
how mature are you? clearly not very...
apologies for listening in my science lessons at gcse and a-levels. what they explained in the show i watched was nothing short of KS4 education standards.
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whats the point of showing a show that nobody will understand? as other people and myself have said it was aimed at the general british public that theres more in the sky than people think, i think the show was very good to make people understand the sky and what to look for, people have to start somewhere and if you throw someone in the deep end of astromony they will be very confused and wouldn't know where to start.
 
dmpoole said:
How mature are you?
Not many people are educated to your level and asking my kids who are 23 & 21 they said they didn't do anything about Space when they were at school.
I certainly didn't back in the 70's.
The program wasn't made for you but people like me so you grow up.
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replying to my response with the same question? :p
i guess that's the type of world we live in nowadays, it seems the only way people attempt to educate themselves is by sitting in front of a TV.
See most 'grown ups' as you seem to think you are and in some sort of defense label me as not being, would pick up a book once in a while and read it.
people seem to have this 'interest' when something is aired, but would(nt) bother researching before or after a particular programme has aired - simply because its to much effort.
 
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iamtheoneneo said:
replying to my response with the same question? :p
i guess that's the type of world we live in nowadays, it seems the only way people attempt to educate themselves is by sitting in front of a TV.
See most 'grown ups' as you seem to think you are and in some sort of defense label me as not being, would pick up a book once in a while and read it.
people seem to have this 'interest' when something is aired, but would(nt) bother researching before or after a particular programme has aired - simply because its to much effort.
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Thats not entirely true, i myself dont like reading books that dont really point you in the right direction, but in the same point i think most people don't understand the mind boggling numbers of space, when you see pictures in magazines of galaxies you see them thinking that their not far away, but in reality there "light years" away, people become stompted, im more interested in astromony know than i was younger, however admit to doing a lot of googling about the distant of galaxies one of my favourite is the virgo cluster which is approximately about 360 Million Light years away, it's actually a supercluster, over 200 + galaxies each one of those galaxies has a 100 trillion stars, each one of those stars could potentially have earth like planets.
 
iamtheoneneo said:
replying to my response with the same question? :p
i guess that's the type of world we live in nowadays, it seems the only way people attempt to educate themselves is by sitting in front of a TV.
See most 'grown ups' as you seem to think you are and in some sort of defense label me as not being, would pick up a book once in a while and read it.
people seem to have this 'interest' when something is aired, but would(nt) bother researching before or after a particular programme has aired - simply because its to much effort.
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Programs such as this, pop-science shows as some refer to them, are in actual fact a very useful and important genre that I'm very glad the BBC still assigns money to.

I think you miss the point almost entirely sadly, people are not attempting to educate themselves while watching this type of program, rather that is a by-product, they are hoping to sit down to some stimulating television as an alternative to some mind numbing soap opera.

Sure much of what they show may well be stuff that you learned at school (for the record, at no point during my GCSEs or A-Levels did I do Astronomy to the level this program presented it, so you really should consider yourself lucky at how in-depth and advanced your lower education was!), but for many people, what they learned at school and don't use on a daily basis begins to fade with time, or even simply becomes out of date. Shows like this allow the spark to be re-ignited for people who simply don't have the inclination or even free time you seem to think everyone should have.

The very worst a show like this can do is entertain somebody for an hour at a time, and make them intrigued enough they have a little think about things, the best it can achieve is to inspire somebody to take up Astronomy (or a related subject) in a real sense or perhaps even kindle a young minds interest.

Why do you think the RI Christmas lectures have endured for so long? The minutiae of the Sciences is not for everyone, but nearly every area of Science can be presented in such a way that a wider audience can get something from it.
 
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i understand your point entirely and good points they are too. my problem is that this show was an hour long and at the heart of it contained very little content, if people spent that hour researching/reading about the same subject matter they could potentially learn a lot more on the subject. everyone has time, its a poor mans excuse to say they have none.

i get its only entertainment at the end of the day, but it is a bit cringe worthy the way they have gone about it.
I have watched several of Brian Cox's programme's before and generally find them worthwhile and at the very least interesting even if its nothing new.
 
While I agree it would be great if everybody was self motivated enough that after spending 8 hours of the day typing at a desk, or stacking stuff onto shelves, or delivering letters, or whatever it is they happen to do, they then came home, fed the kids, perhaps took them somewhere, got cosy with the wife/girlfriend, made or ate dinner, cleaned up etc. and then, at say 9 or 10pm, picked up a text book on a subject such as this and learned something. The world would be a better place, no two ways about it.

However, to expect this to happen is simply unrealistic. So the alternative then is that the BBC makes the type of science shows it did in the 70s. Where a person very into their subject presents the ins and outs of it in great detail. Now this would get a small audience and would be beneficial to them, but again lets be realistic, nowhere near enough people will watch, they are tired, probably stressed and just want to unwind.

So the BBC reaches a compromise, they produce a program without too much detail to digest, and a mix of presenters aimed to appeal to different parts of the personality, they recap the most important aspects of the subject area and try and inject a bit of wonder and get across Cox's enthusiasm.

I really don't see how anyone can have a real problem with this program! Money well spent imo.
 
At the least it's inspired me to invest in a decent telescope one day given you can actually see things like the shadow of Jupiter's moons on it's surface or the spiral arm of Andromeda. Also to hell with planispheres, when you have Starwalk on your iPhone!
 
Somnambulist said:
At the least it's inspired me to invest in a decent telescope one day given you can actually see things like the shadow of Jupiter's moons on it's surface or the spiral arm of Andromeda. Also to hell with planispheres, when you have Starwalk on your iPhone!
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I'm surprised they didn't mention smartphones as both iPhone and Android (Google Sky Map) give you real time location based star maps. They are brilliant and invaluable tools for the night sky.
 
iamtheoneneo said:
i understand your point entirely and good points they are too. my problem is that this show was an hour long and at the heart of it contained very little content, if people spent that hour researching/reading about the same subject matter they could potentially learn a lot more on the subject. everyone has time, its a poor mans excuse to say they have none.

i get its only entertainment at the end of the day, but it is a bit cringe worthy the way they have gone about it.
I have watched several of Brian Cox's programme's before and generally find them worthwhile and at the very least interesting even if its nothing new.
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i do see your point in some aspect, they could have gone in more detail regarding the distant of far objects i.e explanation of light speed iv'e seen on youtube where you travel at the speed of light and what the universe looks like, also how voyager has almost left the solar system, which has been on the news quite recently. some of the 3 episodes time was wasted in regards to hawaii, i was hoping to see a lot more detail of what can be seen, given the fact that it's best place on earth to see the stars. yeah they showed us andromeda and Orion, but they could have showed us horse head nebula, which is on orion, or M81 and M82, also explanation of different filters like the OII filter.

Best star program available is stellarium.
 
Somnambulist said:
At the least it's inspired me to invest in a decent telescope one day given you can actually see things like the shadow of Jupiter's moons on it's surface or the spiral arm of Andromeda. Also to hell with planispheres, when you have Starwalk on your iPhone!
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You'd need a v.good telescope to see the shadow of jupiter's moons on its surface. But a reasonable one will just make out the cloud colours and easily show the bigger moons around it!

They were talking about things to see easily, and even mentioned satellites. I'm VERY surprised they didn't mention looking out for the Space Station. It's VERY easy to see - the brightest object in the sky - and is best seen just after sunset so no need to stay up till late. And there's websites that tell you the exact time to look for it!

It's quite amazing to see this super bright dot (brighter than jupiter & venus) clearly going across the sky in under a minute!
 
on the same subject iv'e just brought myself a Philips SPC880 webcam, apparently pretty good for astro-imaging, you can mod the software to get some exposure so hopefully get some deep sky imaging. which brian cox mentioned the longer the exposure is the more light you gather, which is why you see those fantastic photo's on the internet.
 
Dara was quite funny at times, but Brian Cox was fantastic, wish they ditched Ross he's a total idiot and the way he acted in this program just reinforced my view.

Overall it was an interesting watch, i live down the road from Jodrell Bank so its nice to see it get some much needed exposure.
 
I thought the third one was pretty good, and got better as it went along. Some interesting little bits and facts. I'd like to see more of this stuff on tv.

While Cox is easy to understand, Dara was necessary as Cox has only really had experience with documentaries imo. Dara sounds like a television presenter, Cox sounds a bit wooden at times, and more like a reporter you'd see on the news. Regardless of the few hiccups, i think the two go well on this type of show.

I really should pick up a decent telescope/camera and get into this stuff :).
 
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