Stellarium and Lunar Eclipses

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi guys

I installed Stellarium for the first time the other day, and it's a slick looking interface. Looks and feels nice.

Took me a little while to figure out how to zoom though (F1 help gave me the shortcuts I needed)

I tried putting in the date/time for the Lunar Eclipse on 21st December this year, and it appears it just doesn't support it? The Moon doesn't change colour or show any eclipse.

While writing this, I just put in the Total Lunar Eclipse that was on Aug 28, 2007, and it does support it.

So what's the deal with the eclipse in December? From other sources, it appears that the East coast of Australia will see some eclipse so I'm not sure why it's not showing it in Stellarium.

Cheers

[iceman (Mike)]

hmm nevermind, the problem appears to be between the keyboard and the chair

The eclipse is underway at Moon rise for the east coast, so it was "in the grass" of the ground image and I didn't see it.

FYI Eclipse data for 2010 Dec 21: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEplot/...2010Dec21T.pdf

It doesn't appear to show much for penumbral eclipses though?

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Interesting Mike. Before I try it, does it have a decent image library of Nebs and Galaxies? (not that youve viewed them all natch, just your impression). Im tired of the small Sky and SN image databases.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

The eclipse is underway at Moon rise for the east coast, so it was "in the grass" of the ground image and I didn't see it.

From home 2010.12.31 will be so low it would be lost in my trees.

Lunar eclipes from CdC until 2019.12.31 (it has them to 2100) [I had this all neatly aligned and the spacing got lost when I submitted it.]

UT Penumbra Umbra Semi Duration
Date Max. Type Saros Gamma Magnitude Magnitude Partial Totality
2010 Jun 26 11:38 P 120 -0.709 1.603 0.542 82m -
2010 Dec 21 8:17 T 125 0.321 2.306 1.261 105m 37m
2011 Jun 15 20:12 T- 130 0.09 2.712 1.705 110m 50m
2011 Dec 10 14:32 T 135 -0.388 2.212 1.111 106m 26m
2012 Jun 04 11:03 P 140 0.825 1.343 0.376 64m -
2012 Nov 28 14:33 N 145 -1.087 0.942 -0.183 - -
2013 Apr 25 20:07 P 112 -1.012 1.012 0.021 16m -
2013 May 25 4:10 Nb 150 1.535 0.04 -0.928 - -
2013 Oct 18 23:50 N 117 1.151 0.791 -0.267 - -
2014 Apr 15 7:45 T 122 -0.302 2.344 1.296 108m 39m
2014 Oct 08 10:54 T 127 0.383 2.171 1.172 100m 30m
2015 Apr 04 12:00 T 132 0.446 2.105 1.005 105m 6m
2015 Sep 28 2:47 T 137 -0.33 2.254 1.282 100m 36m
2016 Mar 23 11:47 N 142 1.159 0.801 -0.307 - -
2016 Aug 18 9:42 Ne 109 1.559 0.017 -0.993 - -
2016 Sep 16 18:54 N 147 -1.055 0.933 -0.058 - -
2017 Feb 11 0:44 N 114 -1.025 1.014 -0.03 - -
2017 Aug 07 18:20 P 119 0.867 1.315 0.251 58m -
2018 Jan 31 13:30 T 124 -0.301 2.32 1.321 102m 38m
2018 Jul 27 20:21 T- 129 0.117 2.706 1.614 118m 52m
2019 Jan 21 5:12 T 134 0.369 2.193 1.201 99m 31m
2019 Jul 16 21:30 P 139 -0.643 1.729 0.658 89m -

Interesting Mike. Before I try it, does it have a decent image library of Nebs and Galaxies? (not that youve viewed them all natch, just your impression). Im tired of the small Sky and SN image databases.

The built in ones aren't very big. It would be nice if Stellarium would use the info in the FITS header of DSS images to put them on the display. CdC does. Adding images by hand seems to involve working out the coords, rotation and scale by trial and terror and adding them to a config file.

Barry might have some more comments.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Fred and Mike

Stellarium is capable of very good representations of all the sky phenomena but it does need to be set up carefully to suit your system and the complex opengl display does not work universally on all video systems.

The different types of monitors generally have differences in the gamma which makes it very hard to get a "fits all" display and everyone seems to like to set the brightness and contrast to suit their own taste.

To get a good display you first need to set the brightness, contrast and gamma using an accurate grey scale stair step program. This done you can play with the bortal scale adjustments to simulate you own locality. You can then adjust the absolute and relative scales for the stars to make them more realistic.

Eclipses of the moon are difficult to display. The shadow of the penumbra will be almost non existant if the brightness and contrast are incorrectly set but can be very realistic if set correctly.

In reference to the library of galaxies and nebulae. The textures that are provided are generally quite primative and everyone has a different idea of intensity, colour balance and saturation for enhancement in how they like to see them. In general the absolute brightness bears little relation to the real levels. If it was you would not see much.

I have a library of extra textures kindly provided by many members of this forum. These I have adjusted the levels as much as possible and integrated into stellarium. Making a library of textures is a very tedious job but the results are usually worthwhile. one texture can take many hours to get it oriented correctly so that it overlays the catalogue of stars. I have three nice mosaics of the LMC, Eta Carinae and the Antares/Rho Ophiuchus area that fit very nicely

In the future photos from the DSS will be downloaded as required to fill in the background of the whole sky. In fact the necessary code is already present but not activated, mainly due to some confusion over permissions at the moment. To see what it is like you can Google Virgo and locate the Virgo variation of Stellarium that has the DSS activated.

I regularly have later versions of Stellarium which I compile regularly but it is difficult to pass them on to people other than personally because of their size. ( I am the Tester according to the Stellarium.org home page).

If you have any specific queries please ask and I will try to find out the answers.

Barry