{"id":902,"date":"2013-10-09T10:00:50","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T15:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/?p=902"},"modified":"2013-10-09T10:30:24","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T15:30:24","slug":"titanic-neil-degrasse-tyson-got-it-wrong-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/2013\/10\/titanic-neil-degrasse-tyson-got-it-wrong-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Titanic: Neil deGrasse Tyson got it wrong too"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog6.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog6.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"339\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">In 2012, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, <strong>James Cameron<\/strong> launched a 3D edition <sup>[<a href=\"#1\" rel=\"nofollow\">1<\/a>]<\/sup> of his <a title=\"Titanic\" href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0120338\/\">well-known film<\/a>. The movie had one single change since the first edition in 1997. Thanks to the insistence of the director of the <a title=\"Hayden Planetarium\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amnh.org\/our-research\/hayden-planetarium\"><em>Hayden Planetarium<\/em><\/a> in New York, the famous popularizer <strong>Neil deGrasse Tyson<\/strong>, the sky <strong>Rose<\/strong> contemplates towards the end of the film, when floating on a wood after the collapse, is finally the right one. Or so we thought. But let us remember the story from the beginning.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><!--more-->deGrasse Tyson didn&#8217;t have it easy to <a title=\"Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson - Titanic 3D and Cameron &quot;Wrong Sky&quot;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8B6jSfRuptY\">have Cameron change the sky<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson - Titanic 3D and Cameron &quot;Wrong Sky&quot;\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8B6jSfRuptY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>James Cameron bragged about having taken pains to reproduce all the details of that trip<\/strong>, to the millimeter. But the sky showed in that sequence was not the right one. And, as Tyson account, the problem was not only that the sky was not the one it looked at the time. What is worse, they placed a sky made listlessly. Many parts are just a reproduction mirror of others. <a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog.jpg\">Here it is<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_903\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-903\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-903\" alt=\"James Cameron 1997 Titanic's Sky\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"275\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog.jpg 640w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog-300x128.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-903\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Cameron 1997 <em>Titanic<\/em>&#8216;s sky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">At the insistence of deGrasse Tyson, James Cameron postproduction team got in touch with him. And asked him to send the sky that could be seen in the site of the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912 at 4:20 am. And this is <a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog1.jpg\">what they sent<\/a> from the <em>Hayden Planetarium<\/em>:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_905\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-905\" style=\"width: 530px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-905\" alt=\"April 15, 1912 sky at 4:20 am at the site of the sinking of the Titanic, according to the Hayden Planetarium\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog1.jpg\" width=\"530\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog1.jpg 530w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog1-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 530px) 100vw, 530px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-905\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">April 15, 1912 sky at 4:20 am at the site of the sinking of the Titanic, according to the <em>Hayden Planetarium<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Hence, this was the <a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog2.jpg\">sky in the new version<\/a> of the film:<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog2.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Cameron 2012 Titanic&#8217;s Sky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">A really cool sky in which we can recognize many constellations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog3.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">But it has a serious problem. They placed the image of the sky showing a world map, with <strong>edge constellations distorted<\/strong>. It is very evident in the Square of Pegasus, top right. A square deformed to become a diamond. And the real sky is not like that. Let&#8217;s check it in detail:<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog4.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"261\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Actual Pegasus Constellation and the one shown in <em>Titanic<\/em>, 2012 version<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Unless we are extremely purists, it isn&#8217;t too serious a problem. The sky, in general, is well represented. Buuuut&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">It is very easy to reproduce the April 15, 1912 sky with a software as popular and easy to handle as <a title=\"Stellarium\" href=\"http:\/\/www.stellarium.org\/\">Stellarium<\/a>. The wreck site coordinates are 41 \u00b0 44m N, 49 \u00ba 57m O. Be careful with the time. At the time of the sinking, the Titanic was at UTC -3. It must be entered explicitly in the software, which takes, by default, the time of your computer. This is the sky visible at that time and place.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/Blog.png\" width=\"640\" height=\"359\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is the sky <em>Titanic<\/em> would actually have to show<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">There is a gross error. Incomprehensibly, in the sky sent from the <em>Hayden Planetarium<\/em>\u00a0to Cameron team the brightest object there was at that time in the sky was lacking: Jupiter! With a magnitude that haunted the -2, it had to draw a lot of attention on that darkening sky. It was between Scorpius and Ophiuchus, in the left side of the image.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2013\/10\/blog5.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"474\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>By now, you probably have read <a title=\"When a scientist becomes a movie critic\" href=\"http:\/\/whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com\/2013\/10\/07\/when-a-scientist-becomes-a-movie-critic\/\">Neil deGrasse Tyson remarks on <\/a><em><a title=\"When a scientist becomes a movie critic\" href=\"http:\/\/whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com\/2013\/10\/07\/when-a-scientist-becomes-a-movie-critic\/\">Gravity<\/a><\/em>; if you haven&#8217;t, I don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re waiting for.<\/p>\n<p>_______<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" name=\"1\"><\/a>1 As explained by Neil deGrasse Tyson,\u00a0the change of the sky was made for an edition of the film to mark its tenth anniversary, in 2007. We could not find that version. That is why we show the sky shown in the 3D version, 2012.<\/p>\n<p>(taken from <a title=\"Titanic: deGrasse Tyson tambi\u00e9n se equivoc\" href=\"http:\/\/naukas.com\/2013\/10\/08\/titanic-degrasse-tyson-tambien-se-equivoca\/\"><em>Naukas<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2012, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, James Cameron launched a 3D edition [1] of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[278,277,275,122,276],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-astronomy","tag-movie","tag-neil-degrasse-tyson","tag-popularizing-science","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}