NavList:

David McN, you wrote:
"If your latitude permits you to see Canopus, you should also be able to see Procyon, Sirius and Betelgeuse. To my mind's eye, those 4 stars trace out the logo, with Canopus at the apex pointing towards the SCP."

Wow, that's creative! I'm not sure the prop designers had anything so thoughtful in their heads. There are super-fans who certainly worry about such things, and I'm sure it's been investigated. :) But meanwhile, the stars in science fiction are always entertaining because they're usually unintentionally local. For example, last year one of the Star Wars spin-off series began every episode with a quick fade of a star field, and as is the trademark since 1977, this should be a star field from "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away". In the early decades of the films, they scattered random stars about, and no problem, that could be anywhere in a distant galaxy. But in the recent spin-off, somebody took this art project too literally and used a real star field of the northern sky from right here on Earth. Galaxy far far away? Hey, that's the Big Dipper! And the north star... Heh. That's a mistake.

But back to that episode with three circular slide rules in it (that first episode filmed, way back in May/June 1966), in the briefing room scene, there's a star chart. At the resolution of broadcast television back when this was made, the stars would have been nothing more than a suggestive blur. But after re-mastering and displayed on modern very high resolution screens, we can see the stars and the constellations. How many of the official 57+1 navigation are on display in this image (many are labeled but the labels are still at the "fuzzy blob" level, even at high-res, so how many are there if you could peel that star chart prop off the screen and actually count them up close)?

Frank Reed

File: