Those of us who really know the sky notice little things in movies and television shows that might just slide past most people. I saw the movie Rio yesterday and noticed they had a little issue with sunrise.
Sunrise is a little different when you are south of the equator. First, let's take a look a a northern hemisphere sunrise. I am biased, I live in the northern hemisphere. Here is a time lapse of a sunrise in Vancouver.
This is a nice (but random) video I found on Youtube. Notice how the Sun does not rise straight up, but rather up and to your right (south) when looking east. Now let's contrast that to a sunrise taken from Rio (isn't youtube grand?)
Note how the Sun rises in the east and moves to your left (north) when you are in Rio! As you have probably figured out by now, the time lapse sunrise they showed in the movie Rio showed the Sun moving up and to the right (south)as it would north of the equator.
Sometimes movie and television producers get lazy and will film a sunset and run it backwards to illustrate a sunrise. That's not so good either. When the Sun sets in the northern hemisphere, it sets down and to the right (north). If you run this backwards, the Sun will appear to rise up and to the left (again north since the Sun rises in the east) which suddenly transports all the action to the southern hemisphere!
I know some people might think I am nit-picking a movie about talking birds and my expectations for accurate science shouldn't be too high. But would it have killed a major plot point for them to get this one right? For sky watchers, these things jump out at us. So just get it right for crying out loud!
Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.
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5 comments:
I have way too many things to worry about. Sometimes I just appreciate my ignorance.
I didn't know that, either.
Thanks! it makes perfect sense. I'm like you. I like my movies/programs to use real science when appropriate. I struggled through the first episode on Jerico and never made it through the second. If the world is going to end with nukes, at least show some reality of magnetic pulses and electronics destruction. Always nice to have a method of transpo that uses a carb, points and coil. With age, my tolerence for fantasy has gone up, and poor science down.
So, if you stand on the equator, does the sun rise and set directly vertical?
I can get nit picky about movies as well. I could easily pick out what was wrong about the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.
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