History Main / ArtisticLicenseAstronomy

* Towards the end of Creator/JKRowling's ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'', in mid or late June, Harry is taking his astronomy O.W.L. and charting Orion. Orion is not visible in the night sky in mid or late June at ''any'' latitude. The same scene also has him looking around for Venus (which is never more than 47 degrees away from the sun) around midnight. Needless to say, he didn't do particularly well on ''that'' O.W.L.. Just as well. Muggles have to be better at ''something.'' In addition, it never gets dark enough for stargazing in northern Scotland in July.

* Several works of fiction show amateur astronomers viewing meteor showers through a telescope. In fact, a telescope is the absolute ''worst'' thing to view a meteor shower through, since you need as much sky coverage as possible. The best piece of equipment to view a meteor shower? A lawn chair. Subverted (intentionally or not) in an episode of ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'', in which a group of nerds attempt to view a meteor shower through a telescope, only to have their fun ruined by Malcom and his brothers throwing food at them. They eventually get their own back, and knock Malcom and his brothers onto their backs, where they then view the meteors.

** The prejudice against an specific astrological sign was the result of a star in that constellation being swallowed by a black hole, around 3,000 years prior, and the Regorians witnessing the event. [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale This doesn't take into consideration the interstellar distances and the time it would take for the light of the star to travel to Regor II.]] It would take hundreds if not thousands of year for the Regorians to notice the star had gone dark, and the dates of the star's destruction and the Regorians' cultural change would not match.

* In ''Film/TheKidWhoWouldBeKing'', at night we see some lovely shots of the full moon. This is all happening with in 3 days of a solar eclipse.

** The episodes [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E1Rose "Rose"]], [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion "The Christmas Invasion"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]] all begin with the same AstronomicZoom, starting with a shot of the Moon that pans to Earth before zooming in on London. However, in all three cases there are problems with the zoom:

** In another case of bad sunlight, at the point in "The Runaway Bride" where Donna checks her watch and remarks that it's 3:30 PM, the Sun is far, far too high, given that on Christmas Eve in London, at 51°N, that's roughly ''45 minutes'' before sunset.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]] does it too: Late in Part 1, there's a shot of the Immortality Gate's effect travelling around the Earth, which yet again shows the Arctic regions as being impossibly sunny for Northern Hemisphere winter.

* The stars with pointed spikes — usually four, resembling a plus sign; however there are variants of this such as a x-shaped star — so prominent and known from so many space images are actually caused by the vanes that support the secondary mirror of reflecting telescopes, often known along with the holder of that mirror as ''spider''[[note]] most professional telescopes as well as amateur ones above a certain size, and of the largest ones currently in service ''all'' of them — including the Hubble Space Telescope — because i's ''far'' cheaper and easier to build a big mirror than a big lens, are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflecting_telescope reflecting telescopes]] that use a set of mirrors to work[[/note]] and do not exist in reality, nor when one sees a bright star without optical aid and/or in the space would see it with those spikes [[note]]Watching a bright star with a telescope, at least one of the classical type with lenses (refracting telescope). produces due to the properties of the light a bright disk (that is '''''not''''' the actual disk of the star) surrounded with rings instead of a point-like source; through a reflecting one, however, often one can see the spiky star effect[[/note]]. The effect is known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike diffraction spikes]], and there are photographic/camera filters to simulate it.

* ''Film/{{Apocalypto}}'' features a solar eclipse. The very next night, there's a full moon, which is odd considering that a ''solar'' eclipse can only happen at a new moon. (''Lunar'' eclipses, on the other hand, can only happen at the full moon.) The Moon is obviously like a great big lightbulb a writer can turn up or down, depending on the level of light needed at night. Since it's heavily implied that the Mayan priests secretly know how to predict eclipses, this leads to the amusing FridgeLogic that the characters know better astronomy than the writers.

[[folder:Mangled Celestial Motion — Constellations are Constant]]

* Many writers don’t understand that the phase of the moon is directly linked to the time of its rising and setting:
** A scene in Olivia Manning’s ''Levant Trilogy'' has the main character watching a moonrise in the late afternoon. It is described as a new moon.
** In the 1892 novel ''Mona [=McLean=], Medical Student'' (which is essentially ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin), a full moon is in the sky at the same time as the sun.
* As Creator/StephenKing admits, the moon cycle ''Literature/CycleOfTheWerewolf'' is designed to have a full moon fall on [[HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday various holidays]] rather than an actual 30 day interval.

* The ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' franchise opens on the night of a full moon, the only point in time the particular MonsterOfTheWeek is claimed to resurrect itself. The bulk of the episode, however, takes place on the next night, where another full moon allows it to do so again. A blue moon it ain't.

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* The stars with pointed spikes — usually four, resembling a plus sign; however there are variants of this such as a x-shaped star — so prominent and known after so many space images are actually caused by the vanes that support the secondary mirror of reflecting telescopes, often known along with the holder of that mirror as ''spider''[[note]] most professional telescopes as well as amateur ones above a certain size, and of the largest ones currently in service ''all'' of them -including the Hubble Space Telescope-, because is ''far'' cheaper and easier to build a big mirror than a big lens, are [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflecting_telescope reflecting telescopes]] that use a set of mirrors to work [[/note]] and do not exist in reality, nor when one sees a bright star without optical aid and/or in the space would see it with those spikes [[note]]Watching a bright star with a telescope, at least one of the classical type with lenses (refracting telescope). produces due to the properties of the light a bright disk (that is '''''not''''' the actual disk of the star) surrounded with rings instead of a point-like source; through a reflecting one, however, often one can see the spiky star effect[[/note]]. The effect is known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike diffraction spikes]], and there are photographic/camera filters to simulate it.

* In ''Film/IronSkyTheComingRace'', it's said that a ship moving from the Moon to Mars will take 80 to 100 years to arrive. The thing is, if a ship has already achieved Lunar escape velocity (2.38 km/s), then it should take between 9 months and 5.3 years to get to Mars, depending on the planet's position relative to Earth. And the ship's engines are shown to be constantly running, so the time should be even less.

*** Second, the time of day, a problem that primarily affects "Rose": the zoom-in in that episode ends on a shot of Rose's alarm clock, showing the time to be 7:00 AM in the UK. [[SarcasmMode That explains so well why North America was so very, very sunny in the opening zoom, almost as if it was the middle of the day there, doesn't it?]]

* ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'':

* In the 2009 ''Film/StarTrek'' reboot/alternate continuity film, the Romulan system is destroyed by the shockwave from a supernova. Trouble is, the star shown exploding is an average-looking ''yellow'' Main Sequence star (like our own), which are neither hot enough nor massive enough to generate a supernova. Supernovae form almost exclusively from extremely massive blue-white stars. Also, a supernova can't destroy the galaxy or even a warp-capable multi-planetary civilization like the Romulan Star Empire, since, like everything else in the universe that doesn't have a warp drive, the expansion of its radiation and shockwave is limited by the speed of light: even a very powerful nova should give the Empire ''years'' to evacuate its core planets. [[spoiler:''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', which takes place in the prime universe 22 years after the supernova, acknowledges its implausible behavior and justifies it: it was deliberately induced by the [[BigBad Iconians]] using {{technobabble}}.]]

->'''Reggie:''' Over the past week, the planets of our solar system have moved outside their orbital paths and are coming into alignment. I mean, do you know how unusual that is? \\

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie The 1996 TV movie]] places Gallifrey, the Doctor's home planet, some 250 million light years away from Earth, on "the other side" of the Milky Way. That's about 249.9 million light years ''past the other edge of it''. The Milky Way is estimated to be only between 80 and 100 ''thousand'' light years across.

* In the pilot episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'', Sam suggests that the reason none of the gate addresses on the Abydos cartouche still work is because the expansion of the universe has changed the stellar coordinates they represent. While this could be true for the 8-symbol extra-galactic addresses introduced later in the series, e.g. the Asgard homeworlds or [[Series/StargateAtlantis Atlantis]], it's RightForTheWrongReasons within the Milky Way: the stars ''do'' move relative to Earth over the described timescales, but because of differing orbits around the galactic core (e.g. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapteyn%27s_Star Kapteyn's Star]] orbits retrograde and at an unusual angle) rather than universal expansion.

* In ''Series/SheWolfOfLondon'', Randi tells Ian not to worry about her transforming into her wolf form because "there won't be another full moon for months".

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' episode "Little Rock of Horrors", the "Brain Eating Meteor" is referred to as a meteor even though it is technically a meteorite, having already impacted the Earth; Irwin even points this out in the video game. (Of course, it makes ''perfect'' sense to anyone who points that out that this meteorite being confused for a meteor talks, eats brains, ''sings'', etc...)

* The Crab Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula (because of their interesting appearance) were once depicted as being the home address of various aliens. If not, then they were in the neighborhood. These are not very hospitable areas to have a planet. The former is what remains of a star that went supernova in 1054 and the latter is actually an area where new stars are born. Also, as with constellations, these nebulae will not retain their appearance to a person travelling in space as opposed to on Earth. So an alien wouldn't think of himself as being from, say, the "Horsehead Nebula."[[note]]Though of course he might ''describe'' his home that way, when talking to earth humans.[[/note]]
** This fact plays a role in the Creator/IsaacAsimov novel "Literature/TheStarsLikeDust", where the location of mankind's original solar system is forgotten. From the current power center, the Horsehead nebula looks nothing like a horse's head, so they speculate it's named after the original (mythical) explorer, one Horace Hedd.

** This fact plays a role in the Isaac Asimov novel "The Stars, like Dust", where the location of mankind's original solar system is forgotten. From the current power center, the Horsehead nebula looks nothing like a horse's head, so they speculate it's named after the original (mythical) explorer, one Horace Hedd.

* [[AllThereInTheManual The booklet of]] Music/{{Ayreon}}'s album ''Flight of the Migrator'' mentions as flavor text for the song ''Into the Black Hole'' that the quasar 3C 273 is located in the center of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. The only thing shared by both is to be in the same constellation (Virgo), as the former is 2.4 billion light-years away and the latter at "just" around 54 million light-years (ie: around 44 times closer).

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* ''Film/{{TheKidWhoWouldBeKing}}'': Again a full moon the night before an eclipse.

* Shot down in ''Film/MenInBlack'', where the cryptic clue, "The galaxy is on Orion's belt", is quickly dismissed as blathering nonsense.

* In ''Series/{{Space1999}}'', exterior shots of Moonbase Alpha always show a sunlit landscape, illuminated at about the same angle every time. This is in blatant violation of the basic premise of the show: the moon has left the solar system and is hurtling through interstellar space, usually light years from the nearest star.

[[caption-width-right:284:Not quite how our solar system is arranged.]]

* VulcanHasNoMoon

* In the 2009 ''Franchise/StarTrek'' reboot/alternate continuity film, the Romulan system is destroyed by the shockwave from a supernova...trouble is, the star shown exploding is an average-looking ''yellow'' Main Sequence star (like our own), which are neither hot enough nor massive enough to generate a supernova. Supernovae form almost exclusively from extremely massive blue-white stars.[[spoiler:Finally explained away on ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' as the result of the local BigBad AncientConspiracy.]]

* In the pilot episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'', Sam suggests that the reason none of the gate addresses on the Abydos cartouche still work is because the expansion of the universe has changed the stellar coordinates they represent. While this could be true for the 8-symbol extra-galactic addresses introduced later in the series, e.g. the Asgard homeworlds or [[Series/StargateAtlantis Atlantis]], it's RightForTheWrongReasons within the Milky Way: the stars ''do'' move relative to Earth over the described timescales, but because of differing orbits around the galactic core (e.g. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapteyn%27s_Star Kapteyn's Star]] orbits retrograde and at an unusual angle) rather than universal expansion.

* Subverted in ''Series/StargateSG1''. The SGC cannot dial any address other than Abydos until Daniel Jackson discovers information that shows how to shift gate addresses to compensate for passing time.

* Towards the end of Creator/JKRowling's ''Literature/{{Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix}}'', in mid or late June, Harry is taking his astronomy O.W.L. and charting Orion. Orion is not visible in the night sky in mid or late June at ''any'' latitude. The same scene also has him looking around for Venus (which is never more than 47 degrees away from the sun) around midnight. Needless to say, he didn't do particularly well on ''that'' O.W.L.. Just as well. Muggles have to be better at ''something.'' In addition, it never gets dark enough for stargazing in northern Scotland in July.