Last night I decided to watch Midsomer Murders - one called Written in the Stars. I have seen this one before. Amusing two hours but the astronomy was very mangled up. A total eclipse of the Sun was at the start...not many of these visible from Midsomer or anywhere else in Britain! The passage of the black lunar disc across the Sun was incredibly quick plus they could see the whole dark side of the Moon through out! The first murder was by bashing an astronomer on the head by a huge meteorite "that came from the Moon" - this had been stolen from the local museum...hmmm. etc etc. One of the suspects, when asked for an alibi, said that he was in his shed (he was an amateur astronomer whose pleasure was moonwatching) who said that he was in there all night observing a "transit of Venus" - not many of those about, eh! what at night!? and so it went on. Finally the story concerned discovering a planet going around distant star, which was shown on the screen of the observatory as a mini-eclipse with both the planet and star visible as sizable discs. I enjoyed it again especially the weird astronomy!!! regards maf

Sounds like someone has been on something stronger than irn bru! Actually it's amazing what c**p is foisted on audiences. Why are folk so ignorant of nature? Blob

Makes the "Alien" programs on History and Discovery Channels seem quite plausible by comparison

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Brian
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Wellingborough UK.
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Yes Brian, it begs a more basic question: why are folks so ignorant?

The classic one is the "meteor" that wiped out the dinosaurs. Some meteor!

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brian

I forgot to mention to mention the" Nebra Sky Disc" lookalike (with Moon and stars) which was also stolen with the meteorite, from the local museum, sharpened on a grinding wheel and thrown like a discus to murder another astronomer! Once upon a time I would have been cross about these silly errors but low just find then amusing. The observatory used looked real. I wonder were it was. regards maf