Stellarium error?

[mikesim (Mike)]

I was wandering around Stellarium and zoomed in on Antares when I saw a faint straight line of around 50 stars pointing straight at it starting at mag 14.5 spread over about 1 minute. I've downloaded most of the star catalogue updates. RA/DE 16h 32m 48s/-26 28' 05"
Seems a bit strange. Does anyone else get this lineup? Looks like a meteor tail but shows on Stellarium being comprised of stars?? Maybe my star catalogue didnt load up correctly? Observer lat 38 22S.

[DavidU (Dave)]

Mine seems ok zoomed in on Antares.

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by mikesim

I was wandering around Stellarium and zoomed in on Antares when I saw a faint straight line of around 50 stars pointing straight at it starting at mag 14.5 spread over about 1 minute. I've downloaded most of the star catalogue updates. RA/DE 16h 32m 48s/-26 28' 05"
Seems a bit strange. Does anyone else get this lineup? Looks like a meteor tail but shows on Stellarium being comprised of stars?? Maybe my star catalogue didnt load up correctly? Observer lat 38 22S.

Hi Mike
That line of stars sounds like an artifact that is in star catalogue 7. It is something from the original plates and catalogue generation. Can you confirm the exact coordinates. It may have alreay been listed for correction. See the section in the Stellarium main page on removal of star catalogue artifacts. It is the first item in the table.

Barry

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes

Hi Mike
That line of stars sounds like an artifact that is in star catalogue 7. It is something from the original plates and catalogue generation. Can you confirm the exact coordinates. It may have alreay been listed for correction. See the section in the Stellarium main page on removal of star catalogue artifacts. It is the first item in the table.

Barry, in my display the line runs from (J2000) 16h31'47" to 16h33'12" along -26d26'34". There are a few more out to 16h33m36 but they aren't in a straight line like the others. The Wiki has them as the first entry on this page.

Andrew

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Andrew
Yes I expect that is the one being refered to. It also occurs in catalogues 5 and 6 indicating that the magnitudes vary. These artifacts need to be removed manually from the star catalogues and may take some time as the catalogues contain some 500MB of binary data. At some time new catalogues may be available but we are stuck with these ones due to permissions.

There is another minor error in the ssysytem.ini file that has been corrected in build 4914 but can be fixed with a text editor
Find the entry for himalia
orbit_Period = 0.02483161934941932
and change it to
orbit_Period = 248.3161934941932

Barry

[mikesim (Mike)]

Thanks folks. Will clean up the artifact and move on. I thought someone else must have already seen it. Cheers. mike