Another slide rule sighting in the Australian movie: "The Dish".
"Glenn" uses his slide rule while calculating antenna look angles for Apollo 11. The slide rule is never in sharp enough focus to determine the scales and model, but, if I had to guess, I think it could be an Albert Nestler 0210 (it's wooden with a white back - a somewhat unusual combination).
The movie is a dry comedy about the radio telescope in Parkes, Australia used to broadcast the first moonwalk to the world. It's based on a true story, although virtually all of the details are changed to avoid losing the audience in techie details (all of the problems have to be easy to understand and have common sense solutions that even a person with no satellite tracking experience could think of).
The real true story is as fascinating as the movie, for those interested.
|