Just watched The Day the Earth Stood Still for the "upteenth" time--the original from 1951 and was intrigued to notice the opening credits showed several Deep Sky Objects if you look past the "ether smoke" they put into the shots. Although this is one of my favorite classic Sci-Fi movies (right up there with the Forbidden Planet and the original War of the Worlds) that I have seen many times over for the past 50 years, I admittedly did not pay attention to those opening credits until getting deep into astrophotography and recognized those are true objects and not Hollywood fabrications. Google search only talks about Eagle Nebula since apparently Klaatu's ship traveled through there even though the distances they described would actually put his home planet within our Solar System--how fun is it to see what they thought back then?
I've posted similar question on Cloudy Nights but looking for your help also to fill in the blanks and verify what they are in order of appearance:
1: Appears to be the Veil Nebula but not sure?
2: Andromeda Galaxy (and yes the movie was made late enough to not be called the Andromeda Nebula
)3: Maybe Swan Nebula?
4: Trifid Nebula
5: Eagle Nebula--specifically the Pillars of Creation
Any feedback is appreciated--might be fun to compare those images to today's images.
Clear Skies!
Texas Man
