Star Wars bad astronomy

[User1626]

In Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan can't find the planet Kameeno when someone erases it from the archives, so he has to go there.
Why doesn't he just use a long-range telescopic array? It seems that they don't have any.
This would seem to prove that they got their hyperdrive technology from a visiting alien, since they aren't even able to scope out their own galaxy directly.

[User1627]

dude, this isn't even a question. eu directly states that they don't even know where the hyperdrive technology comes from. in the old republic era, they didn't have the slightest idea of how it worked.

[Admiral Breetai]

In Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan can't find the planet Kameeno when someone erases it from the archives, so he has to go there.
Why doesn't he just use a long-range telescopic array? It seems that they don't have any.
This would seem to prove that they got their hyperdrive technology from a visiting alien, since they aren't even able to scope out their own galaxy directly.

welcome to the board the impression one gets is that the galaxy is stagnant and all and that space exploration likely hadn't occurred for a long time thus the erasure could cause such problems

of course in the EU it;s explained that aside from the Jedi only the trade federation had such highly advanced maps one reason why they monopolized so much. It took force users to make safe and normally accurate hyperjumps thus exploration was rare and very slow

[User1626]

In Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan can't find the planet Kameeno when someone erases it from the archives, so he has to go there.
Why doesn't he just use a long-range telescopic array? It seems that they don't have any.
This would seem to prove that they got their hyperdrive technology from a visiting alien, since they aren't even able to scope out their own galaxy directly.

welcome to the board the impression one gets is that the galaxy is stagnant and all and that space exploration likely hadn't occurred for a long time thus the erasure could cause such problems

of course in the EU it;s explained that aside from the Jedi only the trade federation had such highly advanced maps one reason why they monopolized so much. It took force users to make safe and normally accurate hyperjumps thus exploration was rare and very slow

That's wild, since the immense value of such maps in an age of data-piracy would make them impossible to keep secret.

And if they could use the force to make hyperjumps, then they could use the force to make maps.

[Admiral Breetai]

That's wild, since the immense value of such maps in an age of data-piracy would make them impossible to keep secret.]

I think the Holonet has always been very easily and very strictly controlled so piracy like that is impossible plus they kept those charts very deer and all one would think getting them would require massive scale industrial espionage

no clue why the Order never shared though that's a bit screwed up

And if they could use the force to make hyperjumps, then they could use the force to make maps.

on established hyperlanes it's very easy to jump with accurate calcs from what I recall it's finding new hyperlanes that was extremely difficult and usually 90% fatal hence why those who did discover such routes ended up extremely wealthy

finding new routes and blind jumping ti chart new territory was vastly easier for force sensitives due to their precog or something hence why exploration was so god damn slow

and apparently the empire did invent some kind of navigational computer but after twenty plus thousand years of nothing suggests extremely slow progression

hell the EU is pretty stupid with all this the republic had a seventeen thousand year war due to lack of a hyperlane with a planet only..a hundred lightyears from Curoscant due to neither side actually being able to directly fight at all so battles where very rare few and far between

it seems the republic really didn't span much the galaxy that it did span a decent chunk of it but that expansion was very recent that the empire was able to grow more only because they could map new space better and still seemed to have trouble

[StarWarsStarTrek]

In Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan can't find the planet Kameeno when someone erases it from the archives, so he has to go there.
Why doesn't he just use a long-range telescopic array? It seems that they don't have any.
This would seem to prove that they got their hyperdrive technology from a visiting alien, since they aren't even able to scope out their own galaxy directly.

The Aotc Republic had already mapped out every planet in every star system, so obviously they had telescopes.

As for why Obi Wan didn't use one, why would he need one? Prior to figuring out, with help from a youngling, that somebody erased Kamino from the database, doing so would be a virtual impossibilit without a place to look because space is really big. After, Obi Wan could easily tell where Kamino was by gravitational orbits. Oh, and light would take a very long time to reach wherever Obi Wan sets up his telescope, so whatever images he would pick up would probably show an early or pre civilization Kamino, or an uninhabited on if the Kamino folk aren't indigenous.

[Lucky]

In Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan can't find the planet Kameeno when someone erases it from the archives, so he has to go there.
Why doesn't he just use a long-range telescopic array? It seems that they don't have any.
This would seem to prove that they got their hyperdrive technology from a visiting alien, since they aren't even able to scope out their own galaxy directly.

The Aotc Republic had already mapped out every planet in every star system, so obviously they had telescopes.

As for why Obi Wan didn't use one, why would he need one? Prior to figuring out, with help from a youngling, that somebody erased Kamino from the database, doing so would be a virtual impossibilit without a place to look because space is really big. After, Obi Wan could easily tell where Kamino was by gravitational orbits. Oh, and light would take a very long time to reach wherever Obi Wan sets up his telescope, so whatever images he would pick up would probably show an early or pre civilization Kamino, or an uninhabited on if the Kamino folk aren't indigenous.

But mapping the locations of stellar objects does not give you the hyperlanes to get there necessarily.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

But mapping the locations of stellar objects does not give you the hyperlanes to get there necessarily.

That's a red herring. I was refuting the OP's notion that you can reasonably expect to find a planet on the other side of the galaxy using a telescope.

[Lucky]

But mapping the locations of stellar objects does not give you the hyperlanes to get there necessarily.

That's a red herring. I was refuting the OP's notion that you can reasonably expect to find a planet on the other side of the galaxy using a telescope.

You're making the assumption that astronomy as we know it ever existed in the Star Wars galaxy when there is little reason for it to because of the hyperdrive seemingly being given out like penny candies.

The Aotc Republic had already mapped out every planet in every star system, so obviously they had telescopes.

As for why Obi Wan didn't use one, why would he need one? Prior to figuring out, with help from a youngling, that somebody erased Kamino from the database, doing so would be a virtual impossibilit without a place to look because space is really big.

First off, we don't know how literately they meant they had mapped the entire galaxy. The line just reaks of aragance, the belief that the Jedi know everything.

Secondly, if they had mapped the entire Galaxy then just deleting a planet from the archive would have only hidden the planet so long as no one looked for it. Heck, any time they plot a course in the area the system should have been telling them a planet was there.

After, Obi Wan could easily tell where Kamino was by gravitational orbits.

So is this what happened in canon, or what you think should have happened? I've somehow missed this part every time I've watched the movie.

Oh, and light would take a very long time to reach wherever Obi Wan sets up his telescope, so whatever images he would pick up would probably show an early or pre civilization Kamino, or an uninhabited on if the Kamino folk aren't indigenous.

Obi Won would not be setting up a telescope, anything he could set up would likely not be powerful enough. He would be going to one of those huge ass telescopes that sit on mountain tops, or use something like the Hubble logically if they exist, and then use math to figure out where the star and planet are in real time

He would just have to find the planet that should not be there. It really should not be hard with the supposed computing power Star Wars is supposed to have.

The problem however comes from the fact we don't know by who and how the galaxy was charted by and when. The closest thing to charting the galaxy we see is Vader sending out thousands of probe droids in TESB.

Then there is the problem of many spacefaring races seemingly being near stone/early iron age.

[Mike DiCenso]

All Obi-Wan has to do is fly to a clearly known nearby star system just a few light years away from Kamino's supposed location, then get out a telescope with whatever advances in optics the SW tech confers, and checks to see not only if the star is there, but what planets are around it. Conversely. If he sees that a star is there, but does have a telescope with instruments that will let him see the planets from a few light years away, he can then calculate a jump to the edge of the system, and then use the telescopic instruments to see what planets are there. But all Obi-Wan needs is to be able to confirm or deny the existence of a star with planets where there's a big blank spot on the archive maps, but yet gravitational influence on other stars in the local area.

Actually, you know what's even simpler than that? Obi-Wan doesn't even need to go there at all. It could just be a wild goose chase after all. Since Holonet communications are largely realtime, no matter the distance, all he has to do is find out what the nearest large observatory is in that region, and have them point their instruments at the location and then get back to him. Or they send a quick scout ship over, ect. Once confirmed, Obi-Wan reports back to Yoda and Mace Windu, and then they decide whether or not to send Obi-Wan alone or with a group of Jedi to investigate.
-Mike