Here’s the link to the BBC website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/saturn_trans.shtml

Saturn was one of the first objects I saw out of a telescope. Even though we have these awesome pictures, there is nothing like actually going out and seeing them for yourself.

As far as future topics, maybe something on the discoveries of Spirit and Opportunity on Mars, and also something about the existence of water under the icy crusts of the various moons in our Solar system.

Uranus is my least favourite planet, mostly because I am sick to death of drunken goofs asking if they can see the rings around Uranus. Or the Klingons around Uranus. Those are the only two variations. The rest is just repetition.
I can’t wait until 2620 when they finally get around to renaming it.

Jeff

You have a really easy, conversational way of discussing the wonders of our universe and I think it makes a difference that you’re not “talking at” your audience, but talking “to” them. You’re having a conversation about something that excites and interests you, and it shows.

Keep up the excellent work, Phil. I can’t wait until my nephews are old enough to be able to understand you so I can show them the wonders that exist in the night sky.

Great vid Phil!

Cheers

Edd

I still like to look at Saturn’s rings through a telescope. They’re truly awesome.

BTW, even in areas with moderate light pollution, it’s possible to pick out the color difference between Mars and Saturn.

Great video!!! I was especially impressed at the explanation for the Cassini division. For some reason that’s a stumbly topic to explain and that was great. What would make that perfect would be a little video of the particle moving with half the period of the moon and getting that “tug” every time they are close. I’m sure I could find one if I was actually teaching. In any case, that’s always fun to draw on the board.

I assume the ‘to scale’ means reducing Saturn to Earth scale but that’s just an assumption.

To the scale of a paper, the only reference he mentioned, would be my guess. Projecting the rings onto a US Letter size [I'll assume US isn't going metric any time soon] paper would make the rings thinner than the paper.

See it this way; if Saturn masses roughly 100 times Earth, assuming the same density, it is roughly 5 times as large in diameter. [Actually it is 95 times in mass, and 9-10 times in diameter, according to Wikipedia.]

So any of those house size boulders would be roughly man-sized, say 2m, instead of house-sized, say 10 m, across. Not quite paper thin; and the rings would be thicker than that.

Last time I was out there at night, the Mojave desert is still good. Milky Way is bright. Zodiacal light clearly seen. Andromeda galaxy easily naked eye. Orion nebula in high power binoculars is stunning. So many stars that it crosses what I call the depth threshold: that’s where the sky starts to have a real sense of depth instead of the “few lights on a sphere” effect you get in cities.

As someone else implied, you definitely have a talent for presentation and explanation, and you are highly entertaining to watch as well. It’s very apparent you are passionate about what you present.

I’ll augment that with the line that runs through. Often when science is presented there is a tendency for the “wow” moments as opposed to a narrative. Not so here, which is how professionalism should be.

I wouldn’t change anything, it works. But I note that the tempo isn’t matching the thread, at least up here in the slower latitudes. You get the narrative after the fact instead of while listening, which is distracting. And the lack of breaks compounds that particular problem. I’ll bet a longer format would exhaust some listeners.

Man, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I’d could buy a beer at least. My theory is that movies have taught people that things in space go whiz, so seeing something perfectly still is an uncanny experience for them. Plus, Saturn is just so alien looking to start with – it looks like nothing the average person sees in their day-to-day lives.

I seriously need to find someplace with no light pollution. :/