Star Trek: The Next Generation Visits Palomar

Last week a new release of the Star Trek the Next Generation movies came out in a boxed set on DVD and Blu-Ray. I am not normally in the business of informing my readers of new home video releases, but this one has Palomar Observatory in one of the bonus features.

On the disc for Star Trek Generations is a bonus feature for both the DVD and Blu-Ray releases called Stellar Cartography On Earth.

The feature is just over seven and a half minutes long and it makes the comparison between the stellar cartography room seen in Star Trek Generations (below) and modern reality.

The piece talks a bit about exoplanets, NASA's Great Observatories, Kepler, the proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder mission and Palomar Observatory.

It features Amy Mainzer (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, JPL), Charles Beichman (Michelson Science Center, Caltech, JPL), Michael Werner (Spitzer Space Telescope, JPL) and um. . . me.

They almost got the spelling of my name right (I x-ed out the extra "L" on the screen grab). It was fun to have them visit the observatory last February and to know that Palomar Observatory is now a very small part of the Star Trek universe.