We Are Astronomers

I went to the premiere of ‘We Are Astronomers’ last night at the National Space Centre in Leicester and I must say it was absolutely fab! If you get the opportunity to go to the Space Centre (or one of the other six locations it is playing at in the UK) this is a must see film, narrated by none other than Doctor Who’s David Tennant, with an exceptional soundtrack by Rhian Sheehan.

You could say I am a little bias as my brother is part of the NSC Creative team that have spent the last 8 months working on this film but it honestly was a great film, highlighting how we are all astronomers these days due to international communication becoming ever more accessible and the increasing popularity of initiatives such as SETI@home and Galaxy Zoo via the internet. It also has a lot of information about the new James Webb Telescope, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and possibly the best visuals and explanation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN that I have seen, focusing more on the extremes scales of the project and giving a particles-eye view around the circuit. All of this whilst still being packaged into an easily digestible form that is both entertaining and informative for both young and old.

I look forward to the next film sometime next year but in the meantime I’m going to try and convince Graham to go and see it, not only because I think he will love the animation (especially the simple shape characters) but also because I want to go and see it again! 🙂