Stellarium

[Barrykgerdes]

hi Jason

I have had a look at some of those items and spoken to one of the developers. It appears that some of this is due to early code still in the program that will be fixed before the full version 1.0.0 is released. This could be some time yet. The next bug fix release will be 0.10.0.

I believe M1 and M42 should appear as they do when flag_bright_nebulae is false as this is supposed to be a level they would appear in a dark sky normally. The cut off level is set by their actual magnitude. However not all the nebulae have this data in the program core and are displayed only by the nebula_textures.fab so they are completely off when flag_bright_nebulae is false. M45 appears almost unchanged because it is that bright in a dark sky.

I agree that a dynamic key input should however be able to turn all the textures on or off and I have passed that info on.

Barry

[koputai (Jason)]

Excellent, thanks Barry.
I do love the program, and as I said, use it every day.
One thing that would be great is the ability to import 2-Line elements for artificial satellites so those of us who are keen satellite spotters could use it for pass predictions.

Cheers,
Jason.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Jason

At the moment the only calculation for satellites is done by a comet orbit routine. This is accurate enough for comets and and minor planets etc but is not good enough for earth orbiting satellites. When someone writes a routine to use the TLE's for display in stellarium it should be great. In the mean time two or three of the users have written TLE conversion programs that extract all the comet elements useable data into a form that Stellarium can use for comets and minor planets but it is not suitable for near earth orbiters.

I wrote one in QBasic that uses the TLE data but it runs into the accuracy problem although it appears to work OK. Also if you want to catch a satellite with the telescope you need to update your TLE's regularly.

I have just compiled the latest SVN build #2807. There has been a change to the Time zone reference and the default is now GMT so you need to enter your time offset in the config.ini file. This method however may change before the next release.

Barry

Barry

[dennisjames1]

Hello Barry

I just loved that multi image of Beaumont Hills you did, perfect really.

Is it hard to do ? i would like to give it a go at home here, i am afraid my computer knowledge is limited so i would need dummies instructions on how to attempt it.

Oh by the way the jerky panning view i was having in Vista is gone.
It was hardware related and not Stellarium or Vista.

Cheers

Dennis

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Dennis

Making a panorama from your viewing location can be very satisfying particularly if you align it accurately on the horizon. You can watch stars on the horizon setting or rising through trees etc.

The essentials to make a panorama are a digital camera that can be stably mounted eg on a tripod. Take a series of about 15 pictures evenly spaced around the horizon (preferably on a grassy area so a good ground texture can be assembled). These pictures can be assembled in a panorama program, there are a few free ones out there.

Then using a good graphics program, The Gimp (free) or Photo Shop CS (expensive), carefully remove the sky (make an alpha layer) to give a transparent background. For good resolution the panorama should be about 10000 pixels wide and about 1000 pixels high. The panorama is cut into eight or ten equal sections. Each section is then re-processed to a square modula 2.

These textures are then put into a folder in the landscape folder and a landscape.ini file is generated with all the displaying details.

If you think this is too hard give me you pictures and I will make them into a landscape. Its quite easy once you have made the first one. I have made three or four for different people.

Barry

[dennisjames1]

Hi Barry

Thank-you i probably will do that for the first time,what resolution should i take these images at, 2 mega pixels or higher ?

I was planning to set the camera up in the back yard where i would normally place my telescopes, and that way get a true representation of what i see in the sky at my location.

Is that the way to do it Barry ?

Cheers

Dennis

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Dennis

2 Megapixels will be sufficient. The final practical size of the picture sections wiil be either 1024x1024 or 512x512 so 2 megapixels will give plenty of resolution to work with,

Yes placing the camera on a tripod at you normal viewing position is the way to go. Take lots of pictures I suggested 15 as mimumum but my landscape is made from sections of 44 pictures!.

If you have items in the foreground that stand out take more pictures as double images will appear in the preliminary panorama and one will need to be digitally erased. If you look at mine in the west there is a mast in the forground that needed to be totally removed and then re-inserted, also there were guy wires for the TV aerial to be removed.

Barry

[Barrykgerdes]

My web site www.geocities.com/wendygblyde has been up dated with an edited suite of nebula textures. Most of the textures are the same but I have removed many of those no longer required. The main change is the improved the coords on a great many of them so that they overlay the stars of the much larger star catalogues.

Barry