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Gun Control - Looking for a Pistol...

Posted: 21.02.2007, 16:30
by starfleetengineer
Hi,

Does anyone know if the Pistol Star (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_Star) is in the default installation of Celestia, or only in an addon?
I haven't been able to locate it yet, and I haven't been able to discover it's official classification number either.

Also: LBV 1806-20 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LBV_1806-20
and Eta Carinae: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae

Can't find these either.

Can anyone help?

Thanks

Posted: 21.02.2007, 17:13
by selden
None of the stars you mention are included in Celestia.

Celestia's primary catalog is the Hipparcos catalog: stars with HIP numbers.

Also included are catalogs for stars within 25LY (nearstars.stc), stars with planets (exoplanets.stc) and some double stars (spectbins.stc and visualbins.stc).

If it isn't in one of those catalogs, it has to be provided as an Addon.

Also, both LBV 1806-20 and the Pistol Star are further than the distance (15KLY) at which Celestia can reliably draw Star objects.

FWIW, I included an STC catalog for ETA Car in one of the billboard examples available at
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celest ... d.html#5.3
It's only an approximation, since Celestia does not (yet?) provide a representation for variable stars.


Sorry.

Posted: 22.02.2007, 01:36
by Celestial_Planets
Looks like starfleetengineer here actually values my news about hypergiants and hypernovae.

Unfortunately, celestia can only use the default values for up to Supergiants. One more thing, LBV 1806-20 is way toward the center of the galaxy, or was it toward the LMC, way off its 16200 (5 Kpc) limit.

Selden, we (we meaning starfleetengineer and I) accept your apology.

Yours truly
Celestial_Planets.

Posted: 22.02.2007, 13:20
by starfleetengineer
selden wrote:Also, both LBV 1806-20 and the Pistol Star are further than the distance (15KLY) at which Celestia can reliably draw Star objects.

Sorry.

Oops, I forgot about this, silly me!.
Thanks for the additional info anyway Selden. (No apology required BTW. :wink: )

CP: From memory, I think it's the Pistol Star which is near the center of the galaxy....check the WIKI links I provided.