Somewhere recently was some discussion about the SciFi channel's Dune miniseries. That got me interested in watching it again so during the board hiatus I pulled out my DVD copy and watched the whole thing straight through.

Anyway, there isn't a whole lot of actual astronomy in it, but there is one glaring problem--the moons. They're crazy. Now I know that for most part they are just painted on a backdrop, but they could've been done better. Here are the problems I saw.

In the opening scene (repeated several times) showing the planet with it's moons about it, Arrakis itself is shown about 80% full, but the moons next to it are only 50% full.

The moons as seen from Arrakis were always just on the horizon, and 99% of the time they were full. There are only a handful of scenes where they appear otherwise. They are also both the same size in the sky (though one is much smaller than the other in the opening scene), appearing about the same size as Earth's moon.

In fact, in one scene, it is Earth's moon. When the lady Jessica looks out her window late at night, she sees a huge full moon, and it's plainly our own. The maria are easily visible and recognizable. I laughed out loud when I saw this one. :-)

During one scene where Paul and his mother were alone in the desert, they panned across the scene from one to the other. It started with one full moon in the background, panned over almost 180& and ended with a second full moon in the background (IOW, it panned from one painted-on moon to the other). And it was still daylight at the time, although this could be explained as right at sunset.

The very last scene in the series is a confusing one. In the background (again on the horizon), there is a thin crescent moon, sitting there upright like a "C" in broad daylight. But as the scene fades into night (?), the moon stays where it is, and another moon fades in next to it. At least I think it's a moon. It might be the sun because it's round and bright yellow and it's a "walking into the sunset" type of scene. But it's still dark, and the crescent moon next to it is "pointing" the wrong way to be illuminated by it. Most puzzling.

Well, that was fun. :-D Anyway, other than that I found the miniseries to be really good. It bogged down a bit in the last episode, and I thought the production values and battle scenes were a bit weak, but it did a very good job of getting the story across, much better than the David Lynch version. I'm curious to see the new miniseries now.

I've also started reading the novel again (it's been about 10 years now), and I'm going to see just how faithfully it depicts the book. The beginning at least follows the book closer than I had thought.

PS: No, there were no nude scenes (it's the US release), but there are a couple of "almost" topless shots that were a bit risque.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

For what it's worth the Dune Encyclopedia (which has Frank Herbert's approval as being canon) gives this data on the two moons:

Krelln - outer satellite (the "Hand") - diameter = 956km, mean distance of 324,077; orbit = 25.5 days, with a libration of 16 degrees. Angular size = 10.36 arc minutes (v. about 30 arc minutes for our own Moon)

Arvon - inner satellite (the "Mouse") - diameter = 402 km, mean distance = 130,000 km; orbit period = 5.7 days. Angular size = 13.42 minutes.

Avron occults Krelln every 547.2 days.

(Recall that Arrakis is nominally around Canopus; Caladan around Delta Pavonis).

(I realize that the bad astronomy was inherent in those images, but I like adding useless data to the mix, so enjoy).

I don't think that any of that is outside the realm of possibility, just probability.

all the moons can apear the same size so long as their orbits are in decending orbit of actual size, and their exact orbits are such that from the planet they would apear the same diameter (forced perspective in other words).

they can also apear to be in different phases if they are oddly shaped. this would basically require them to be the shape of m&ms, so that any slight difference in their alignement with the sun (a difference that becomes even more dramatic depending on their distance form the planet) would produce differing shadow effects.

a moon could actually quite reasonably appear in almost the same place all day. your argument there presupposes that all moons orbit at the same speed and trajectory as our own. it could either be a very slow orbiter, or it could have a wildly large eliptical orbit, like plutos but more extreme, so that toward the end of the cycle it buzzes past the planet very closely. the effect of that would be that as it is aproaching or leaving the shortest part of it's orbit, it would apear to be almost still if viewed from the corect position.

that a moon would look like our own is not that unusual, and we have the plainest variety of moon. that it could look exactly like ours might merely be because the film makers wanted it to look as real as possible, and our moon is pretty darn real!

while all of this occuring on one planetary system is highly unlikely, that does not mean it's not possible or consistant with physics. it's a big universe, and I'm sure stranger things happen

Caladan is supposed to be orbiting Delta Pavonis? Really? That puts it within 20 light-years of Earth!

If it's so close, how come we never hear about Earth in the Dune books? (The Brian Herbert/Kevin J. "Star Wars hack" Anderson Butlerian Jihad novel doesn't count, as it diverges dramatically from the Dune Encyclopedia.)

It's been a few years, and I don't have access to the books to verify, but I distinctly recall Paul discussing Earth history with Stillgar, comparing genocides such as the Nazi Holocaust to the current Jihad. Must have been in Dune Messiah.