Celestia Forums

Well, I don't finish things well. Mira is still in beta (but available on the Motherlode) and I have already started (weeks ago) work on my next project. I am having great difficulties with rendering issues and nasty little artifacts around stars, but I like the new work so much that I just had to give a taste. The animation is sped up 100x. Sorry about the long load for you dialup users and I know the colors are a bit extreme. I am refining the textures, but you gotta like the differential cloud speeds ...

Click to see the animation:

Looks very nice....

Keep up the good work!

Buggs:

What can I say!!!!!

Frank

Is this a known star, or a fictional add-on? Not that it matters. Looks pretty sweet!

...John...

Dollan wrote:Is this a known star, or a fictional add-on? Not that it matters. Looks pretty sweet!

...John...

Known, Beta Lyrae, an eclipsing binary. I have done a ton of research (probably the most since college ) Did a lot of number crunching, a few sketches and read a bunch of research papers to get the limit of knowledge on the system. My ssc/stc files reference at least 10 sources. I am trying to discern coloration of the disk now. I really wanted to get a 3 dimensional sense of motion and have a kind of "reality". It is a theorized 6 body system (all 6 are modeled, the primary and companion had the most data, the rest are postulated) The disk actually occulates the secondary, it is an eclipsing binary. All references will be included with the release. I will put some more pictures up soon... I am still working on the matter stream (no animation ) and there is matter postulated to be falling off the L2 point since the primary fills it's roche lobe radius. Good to finally see interest in the post. It was disheartening to only have 1 reply for so long.

I have a special interest in real star visualizations, so it is gratifying to see someone working on them! Looking forward to seeing more.

BTW, I thought Beta Lyrae was a trinary system, with several optical but unrelated members?

...John...

Binary for sure, trinary with many (33) observations, and up 6 with only a few measurements. I took the liberty to say they are orbiting the barycenter with huge periods.

Of course now that I look at this http://homepage.univie.ac.at/peter.wienerroither/pwafods/18501+3322.htm
I see my angles are correct (it looks the same in Celestia), but my separations are off, will have to look into this... I am very concerned with how big the A-B separation is. Wait, just figured it out, it is a possible 7 star system. I was missing one.

Here is my main source for the multiple star data: http://www.alcyone.de/SIT/mainstars/SIT000592.htm

Here is one rendition of the matter off the L2 point FYI by Chesley Bonestell
http://www.bonestellgallery.com/images/betal.gif

A little bit more... Encountering VERY annoying graphics artifacts.

buggs_moran wrote:Good to finally see interest in the post. It was disheartening to only have 1 reply for so long.

Sorry, I tend to be a lurker ^^;;

buggs_moran wrote:A little bit more... Encountering VERY annoying graphics artifacts.

Whoa, fancy. I'd love to see something like this in Celestia.

I can't find anything aside from the one page you found that mentions any other components, including the third member (of course, now that I think on it, I was thinking of Algol, not Sheliak). I have a strong suspicion that they are optical companions, and not associated with the system at all.

...John...

"There was smoke across the sky, a trail of red smoke wound in a tight spiral coil. At the center of the coil was the source of the fire: a double star. One member was violet-white, a flame to brand holes in a human retina, it's force held in check by the polarized window. The companion was small and yellow. They seemed to burn inches apart, so close that their masses had pulled them both into flattened eggs, so close that a red belt of lesser flame looped around them to link their bulging equators together. The belt was hydrogen, still mating in fusion fire, pulled loose from the stellar surfaces by two gravitational wells in conflict.
The gravity war did more than that. It sent a loose end of the red belt flailing away, away and out in a burning Maypole spiral that expanded and dimmed as it rose toward interstellar space, until it turned from flame-red to smoke-red, bracketing the sky and painting a spiral path of stars deep red across half the universe."

- Description of Beta-Lyrae from Larry Niven's "The Soft Weapon"

Buggs,

I'm told that Celestia illuminates objects as if from infinity, so it can't properly illuminate individual objects that surround the light source. You might try cutting the torus into quadrants to see if that helps.

buggs_moran wrote:Sorry about the long load for you dialup users...

Very nice, but maybe next time think about a thumbnail with a link to the animation.
eg.



That way dialup users won't have to re-load it every time they re-visit the thread, after viewing it the first time

selden wrote:You might try cutting the torus into quadrants to see if that helps.

I'll have to try that. Thanks Selden!

Chuft-Captain wrote: - Description of Beta-Lyrae from Larry Niven's "The Soft Weapon"

Cool . Niven rocks. Never read this one though. Very cool description. That will hopefully be the end result. Haven't started work on the spiral yet. Soon.

Dollan wrote: I can't find anything aside from the one page you found that mentions any other components, including the third member (of course, now that I think on it, I was thinking of Algol, not Sheliak). I have a strong suspicion that they are optical companions, and not associated with the system at all.

Yeah, I figured that too John, I used Grant's Excel sheet for positioning so it autogenerated a period. Right now, it looks just like that photo from above. I could put them at a greater distance or just drop the periods to 0...hold that thought...okay, I dug a little in the Tycho 2 catalogue and found some data on bet lyr b. Maybe I will just plot that info ... What should I do? Any ideas?

Telepath wrote:

buggs_moran wrote:Sorry about the long load for you dialup users...

Very nice, but maybe next time think about a thumbnail with a link to the animation.

Good call Telepath. I should know better. I will use your imageshack jpg for the time being unless that is a problem.

I'd use the Tycho 2 information, myself. There would be some degree of accuracy, then, rather than an auto-generated period.

...John...

Buggs; Chuft Captain just referred me to this post.

How is the Beta Lyrae project coming?...I'll help Beta test if needed.

Louis

Louis Wu wrote:Buggs; Chuft Captain just referred me to this post.

How is the Beta Lyrae project coming?...I'll help Beta test if needed.

Louis

The matter transfer stream is getting there. Still have condensation point and spiral stream off L2 to do and then some refining and documentation. So quite a bit of work left. I will have a beta ready by the end of February. I hope. Work and life have a tendancy to get in the way of my Celestia development. Figures. I will post a link to it when I get closer. While you are waiting, try out Mira at the motherlode (it is still a beta as well ). It is a "real" star system as well. Now that I have refined gas movement around stars, it may have to be gutted. We'll see.

Buggs;

I am running "Mira" it's pretty cool except for the Ball-like nubula cloud. I might not have enough resolution to get it to work properly.

I do want to thank you and the other developers for all the hard work you put in to Celestra add-ons. I am enjoying your work! You have made this boy very happy.

Louis

I downloaded Mira and my son is delighted with it...he wants all red giants in celestia to look like this. My only gripe (and it's a very small one) is that the prominences are moving at a speed much faster than light speed. I managed to slow two of the flares right down, but one of them is still zipping across mira at warp speed. Is there a way of slowing this one down. Also, I made a Beta Lyrae add-on for myself last year, but compared to the one you're making , it was just two glowing eggs whipping round each other. Can't wait till it's done. It looks good.