NatGeo Documentary - Comet of the Century

[Gary]

Excellent documentary. Must watch.

Here are the showtimes for the week in case you missed it tonight.

COMET OF THE CENTURY

StarHub TV National Geographic Channels 457 & 411:

Channel 411
- 24 Nov (Sun) 22:00
- 25 Nov (Mon) 02:40, 07:00, 23:00
- 26 Nov (Tue) 02:40, 05:10, 07:55, 16:10
- 28 Nov (Thu) 20:00
- 30 Nov (Sat) 18:00

Channel 457 (HD)
- 24 Nov (Sun) 22:00
- 25 Nov (Mon) 23:00

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

SingTel mio TV National Geographic Channels 201, 203, 207

Channel 201
- 24 Nov (Sun) 22:00
- 25 Nov (Mon) 02:40, 07:00, 23:00
- 26 Nov (Tue) 02:40, 05:10, 07:55, 16:10
- 28 Nov (Thu) 20:00
- 30 Nov (Sat) 18:00

Channel 203 (HD)
- 24 Nov (Sun) 20:00

Channel 207 (HD)
- no telecast

Source: http://www.astro.sg/2013/11/national-ge ... ntury.html

[kochu]

I watched it yesterday. Frankly I did not find it very impressive. In spite of the title , the contents drifted from main theme and it failed to reason out why ISON is 'Comet of the Century'
Kochu/25-11-13

[Gary]

I watched it yesterday. Frankly I did not find it very impressive. In spite of the title , the contents drifted from main theme and it failed to reason out why ISON is 'Comet of the Century'
Kochu/25-11-13

Agree with you with regards to staying focus on the "century" part of the documentary title.

But from the perspective of making a comet documentary with mass appeal (and thus attracting maximum ad dollars), I think NatGeo did quite a good job. The pace was just nice for me and the 3D animations actually helped in understanding the explanations (instead of just eye candy only). I also enjoyed watching the Isaac Newton segment, especially the exciting thought of people back then looking at the sky night after night in anticipation of the comet's return.

[starfinder]

I found it odd that the documentary totally avoided mentioning the fact that Comet Ison was discovered by a Russian and a Byelorussian astronomer. Instead, it spent a lot of time focusing on an American at the Minor Planet Center as the hero who, NatGeo says, first computed its orbit and concluded that the comet was not heading towards Earth. It gave a false impression who the discoverers were. Seems very parochial.

Also, they twice showed a NASA/JPL rep describing Comet Ison as going to be brighter than the full Moon. I thought that over hyping was discarded by even the mainstream media long ago.

Nevertheless, there were some good segments such as on spectroscopy, the origin of water on Earth, and the significance of comets on the work of Newton and Halley.

[lqx]

Well... I guess they went to NASA for assistance on making this documentary, so I suppose its natural that they ended up talking more about achievements by western astronomers. As for the hyping, this documentary was possibly made/planned much earlier in advance (hence the comet of the century title), so it was still on slightly dated perspectives on how bright the comet would be!

Thanks Gary for the heads-up on the documentary though! Fun comet intro for the rest of my family!

[Gary]

Thanks Gary for the heads-up on the documentary though! Fun comet intro for the rest of my family!

No problem my friend. Credit goes to Gavin posting about this show in the Comet ISON thread. I spent some time finding out more about the timings after reading his post.