Celestia Forums

I spent the weekend improving the oribtal calculations used in Celestia and getting better trajectories for unmanned spacecraft. Here's an image showing Voyager 2 near it's closest approach to Uranus:

http://ennui.shatters.net/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=celestia&id=v2_uranus

The image is very close to the one produced by JPL's solar system simulator. A new (and final!) prerelease of Celestia will be ready in a couple days, and at that time I'll also make a new version of the Voyager add-on available with the improved trajectories. I spent hours just following the Voyager craft, Cassini, and Jupiter . . . The Voyager 1 flyby of Saturn is particularly dramatic.

With the new calculations, I was also able to reproduce the correct path of an eclipse that observed from Athens on 14 Jan 484!

--Chris

i hope this prerelease will include the fixed night side lights

i hope this prerelease will include the fixed night side lights

Great!!! I'm looking forward to following the Voyagers!

Chris, do you use BCE/CE (BC/AD) dates or -/+ CE dates? (For instance, is the year before 1 year 0 or year -1?

Thanks.

Chris, this is impressive!
When do you think you'll add the loop to take account of the light velocity delay ?
That way we will be able to see the phemus of jupiter!
---Paul

Awsome...My accuracy should improve now that I have a book...a catalouge of all celestial bodies known to man...Kenneth R Lang's Astrophysical Data: Planets and Stars...Includes complete RA and Dec coord inc distance and dimentions of Planetary Nebs, T Tauri Stars, Wolf-Rayent stars, the list goes on and on....

Rassilon wrote:Awsome...My accuracy should improve now that I have a book...a catalouge of all celestial bodies known to man...Kenneth R Lang's Astrophysical Data: Planets and Stars...Includes complete RA and Dec coord inc distance and dimentions of Planetary Nebs, T Tauri Stars, Wolf-Rayent stars, the list goes on and on....

where did you get this book? it sounds interesting...