So, have you seen these commercials yet? The ones for the Burger King Steakhouse Burger? I’ve caught three of them so far, and they are all similarly annoying, but the last one ticks me off. I’m quoting these from memory, so these are probably not exact.
The first one I saw went something like this: Two men are sitting in a lunchroom, eating their BK Steakhouse burgers. A woman enters the scene, and asks one man “What did you do to earn that Steakhouse burger?” He replies “I gave half my paycheck to charity.” She nods happily, and then asks the second man “And what did you do?”. The second man replies “I was just hungry.” The woman angrily slaps the second man and calls him an arrogant and selfish jerk. The tagline is “The steakhouse burger is so special, people will think you’re special too”.
I saw another variation a few days ago, which I frankly can’t remember. However, last night I saw this one:
Two men are sitting at a table in a room lined with rack-mounted electronics. On the table is a small (6- or 8-inch) Newtonian telescope. Obviously this is *supposed* to be an observatory in a university setting. A third man enters the scene and asks “What did you do to earn that Steakhouse Burger”. The first man replies “I found a moon around Regulus 359, in the Crab Nebula. It may support life”. The third man asks the second “And you?”. The second man replies “I helped”. The third man angrily replies “You either *find* a new star, or you *don’t* you arrogant <bleep>”.
Of course, the point is supposed to be that these burgers are really good, and that people will expect you to have done something special to earn them. However, this commercial grates on my nerves because of the obvious errors, so the producers and directors of this commercial get no BK Steakhouse Burger!
First of all, Regulus is a star, not a constellation. There is no star ‘Regulus 359′. Regulus is a particular star, the brightest star in Leo. It is a triple star system, so there is a Regulus A, B and C, but no ‘Regulus 359′.
The star ‘Wolf 359′ is in Leo, which may be where the commercial got ‘Regulus 359′. Wolf 359 is a small, dim, red dwarf star, only about 7.8 ly away. Regulus A is about 77.5 ly away, and is a type B star, young, hot, and also spinning very rapidly.
The ‘Crab Nebula’ is not anywhere near Leo, it’s in Taurus. It’s also a supernova remnant, so anything “in the Crab Nebula” would be toast.
So, let’s assume that ‘Regulus 359′ is supposed to be a star, then what they discovered would be a ‘planet’, not a ‘moon’. As far as I know, we’ve only been able to discover some extrasolar planets by the wiggle they put into their host star. There has been some spectroscopic analysis of the reflected light from some planets, but no direct imaging. I don’t see how we could discover a ‘moon’ at this point (but I could be wrong).
Is that supposed to be the telescope that they used? It looks like a commercial 8-inch newt. It would be really cool if we could image extrasolar planets from that scope, but not very damn likely.
And lastly, they can’t keep their story straight for the whole 30 seconds. Guy #1 says ‘moon’ and guy #3 says ’star’. Which is it?
All in all, this commercial belongs on Phil Plait’s site as an example of bad astronomy in the media. Sorry guys, you had an opportunity to earn that BK Steakhouse Burger, but now I have to take them away.
30-inch mirror, 12-foot focal length, 10-year old operator
Posted by astrogeek on June 30, 2008
The Challenger Telescope at Fremont Peak is (as amateur telescopes go) a monster. It weighs in right around 2000 lbs, but is so finely balanced that you can move it with a fingertip. It’s on a fixed ‘English Cross’ mount, and can hit any point in the sky (with the exception of near-horizon objects due to the observatory walls).
With a 30-inch mirror it can pull in objects as faint as Pluto and can gather enough light to make potography of faint diffuse nebula a reality. Planned upgrades include additional automation for imaging. This is a serious telescope.
With a serious piece of equipment, operators must be trained by the Association before they are allowed to run the telescope. This involves several pages of written materials on procedures and rules, as well as a hands-on training session in moving the telescope. While the telescope is fitted with digital setting circles, it is moved by hand. My oldest daughter was trained and certified to run it two years ago, at the age of ten. At the time, she was the youngest person ever trained to run the telescope. Now that record has been broken.
When Hannah was trained, she was 2 months away from her 11th birthday. Now her younger sister Rosie has also been trained. Rosie is a bit over three months away from her 11th birthday.
I’m looking forward to bringing Rosie up to the peak and letting her point the scope during a public session. That’s always a blast, to see young people, especially kids her age, really getting into astronomy. One of these days I’ll post some scans of her sketches.
Posted in Commentary, Observation Log | 1 Comment »