Stellarium questions.

[rider]

I was on the stellarium site looking at the add-ins and there are a couple for Nebulas which are marked as suitable for the 0.10.0 (- it was produced by Barry Gerdes)

www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Nebula_images

first question
I am running 0.10.2 - Barry, (or anybody else), are they already included in the 0.10.2 version, or is it still added as an extra download?

second question
Are the two files versions of each other or separate add-ins?

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Rider

Nebula images suitable for display in Stellarium version 0.10.2 are much different to those available for version 0.9.x and earlier. They need a file textures.json which contains all the necessary information to display them correctly.

I have prepared about 30 extra nebula textures from friends that have given their permission to use with stellarium. They were available from my geocities site but as geocities is no longer available they cannot be downloaded. Some of these are on the stellarium site but they may not be up to date.

Any textures can be adapted to display in Stellarium however it can be a tedious process to enter the data by hand. Each corner of the texture must be located within an arc second to display correctly. Also textures larger than 1 degree square are sometimes impossible to overlay accurately due to plane textures not fitting on a psuedo spherical surface. However I have made three 4 panel nice mosaics of the LMC , Eta Carinae and Rho oph/Antares from Bert's High res pictures which get round this problem to a large extent. There are also an additional 26 textures covering items not included in the default set. These also include the necessary textures.json additions to allow correct display.

The eventual aim is for stellarium to use textures downloaded as required from the DSS. This will remove the need for separate nebula textures as is the case at the moment.

Barry

[rider]

Thanks for the quick reply Barry,

By the way, FYI: regarding 0.10.2
I don't know if this has been noticed yet, so ignore if it has, but when the extra stars are downloaded, some of the major named stars become labeled twice and the labels have a slight print registration shift. From memory, I think Rigel Kent is one example.

[mithrandir]

As long as it caches them. :)
Does DSS have colour images, or will they all be greyscale?

[Barrykgerdes]

The one I saw in the original test was NGC 2070 and it was in colour. Other than this I know nothing more.

Barry

[Barrykgerdes]

Have a good look at Rigil Kentaurus and zoom right in. It is actually labels for two stars. I think many of the doubled labels may actually be doubles both named.

Barry

[rider]

Arrrh Yes, my mistake, (observation skills were left outside with telescope)

[Barrykgerdes]

Actually I thought the double name was a bug until you refered to it. This prompted me to zoom in. That is how I discovered the second name! So you are no more in error than me.

Barry