The Drake equation contains about half a dozen variables of which we have no idea the value of.If you plug less optimistic values into those variables you can easily end up with only ONE planet with intelligent life in the galaxy . The Drake equation was never designed to provide an answer, just to model what the main…

Bear in mind that the moon is in the sky, which is why the sky seems a bit low contrast and why the moonbow is visible. I think this is one image, your exposure estimate is pretty good though.

2018 would be the James Webb Space Telescope

I can see some obscuring of the stars in the opening sequence , although they are very thin clouds so it's not incredibly obvious ! as for the Milky Way shots you can see that the city lights ARE overexposed , a good example is at 2.20 . When I used to do Astrophotography (a looong time ago) an SLR with a fast lens…

I'll take those points !-) "Cast a Deadly Spell " , when, oh when will this come out on DVD ?

What fake Stars ? The exposure times for each frame is long enough to actually capture the stars (until they are washed out by other light sources)

Yeah , there is a bit of selection bias at work with these results. Kepler has only been deployed for about 3 years and requires 3 transits of a planet (2 complete orbits) in order to verify it. Also the further away a planet is from its star then the less likely it is to transit the stars disc. Thus the planets…

I believe 3 transits are required in order for the Kepler data to indicate a planet exists! Therefore a minimum of twice the orbital period is required to detect a planet ! So if Kepler were observing our Solar System only Mercury, Venus and Earth would have been detected given the 3 years Kepler has been in…