Meson taloscopes were a type of analytical equipment that could be used to measure the number of Midi-chlorians in an individual's blood. The Naboo Royal Starship was equipped with state of the art meson taloscopes, and in 32 BBY the Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi used one of the vessel's taloscopes to analyze the blood of the slave Anakin Skywalker.
Meson taloscopes were a piece of analytical equipment that consisted of a square silver base with a high resolution eyepiece and a mounted on top of it amongst various exposed circuitry. When turned on, red and green lights would flash around the base of the taloscope and it would emitted various electronic noises. It was designed to perform diagnostic analysis on samples on a submicroscopic structural level.
In 32 BBY, the J-type 327 Nubian starship that served as the Naboo Royal Starship was equipped with a state of the art meson taloscope. While the starship was stuck on the planet Tatooine due to a damaged hyperdrive, one of the pilots of the Naboo Royal Space Fighter Corps was sat at a table in the starship's main hold with a member of the Theed Hangar's ground crew. The pilot made use of the taloscope with the ground crewman watching while the Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi spoke with his Master Qui-Gon Jinn via comlink.
Kenobi later made use of a separate meson taloscope on board the ship when Jinn sent through data from a sample of the slave Anakin Skywalker's blood for analysis. After turning on the machine, Kenobi looked at the results on a monitor and discovered that Skywalker's Midi-chlorian count was off the charts, making it higher than twenty thousand.
Two distinct meson taloscope props were created for the 1999 prequel trilogy film, Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. The first of these, the prop used by the pilot, was first identified in the new Star Wars canon by the 2018 reference book Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary, New Edition. The name for the prop originated in the Star Wars Legends continuity, where it was first used in the 1999 reference book Star Wars: Episode I The Visual Dictionary, which was written by David West Reynolds. The second prop, used by Kenobi, was first identified as also being a meson taloscope by Star Wars Identities: The Exhibition, an exhibition that has been running since 2012.
- Star Wars Identities: The Exhibition
- Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary, New Edition
- Star Wars 100 Objects