leading from
and
 |
| "Stars of the Middle Heavens" photo from Book Of Alien, published 1979 |
In Scanlon and Gross' Book of Alien, they mention that the design crew worked long hours to produce a realistic chart of the Middle Heavens which can be seen barely in the background.
What they show in a photograph of the chart in the book is one that contains an image of the moon and at the bottom of that, the top of a translucent star chart bearing the enigmatic title "Stars of the Middle Heavens" which is indeed a copy of Philip's Chart Of The Stars,which can be found to bear the words "stars of the middle heavens, approximate dates when the sun reaches each hour of right ascension".
 |
Photo of the same subject matter from a different angle
from the Alien film production, detailed and in colour.
(Image posted by Mykel Solo at https://www.facebook.com/yutani.studio/
on May 15th 2019 |
 |
Philips' Chart of the Stars with Philips Planesphere
(What seemed to be a real copy of the map) |
Why I am mentioning it is that it's likely that over the years since
its publications, many people assumed that the area of space that the
Nostromo was traveling through was named the "
Middle Heavens".
 |
| Reproduction with no serif typeface. |
 |
| What seemed to be a real copy of the map |
 |
| What seemed to be a real copy of the map |
 |
| What seemed to be a real copy of the map |
 |
| What seemed to be a real copy of the map |
I had been wondering if there was more behind this rather trivial detail than Scanlon and Gross had provided. Apparently, there is not much ;-) Indeed, thanks for wondering as well as being able to look into this.
ReplyDeleteThankyou indeed. It was nice to think about an area of space called The Middle Heavens for a number of years but it was something that had to come to an end.
ReplyDeleteVery Helpful! Writing some fan fiction...
ReplyDeleteSo, everyone take note that when Nostromo said to be just short of Zeta II Reticuli, it took that star as a navigational point and that star is amongst the Southern Stars rather than the Middle Heavens
ReplyDelete