STC problem: 36 Ophiuchi B

[ACrisp]

Hi all,

I noticed that the star 36 Ophiuchi was lacking a companion. 36 Ophiuchi is a trinary star system, and while A and C are in Celestia, B was not.

Rather than use a "luminous object" in an SSC file, I decided to set up an STC file, using the examples in the Gamma Leporis B thread and selden's own excellent guide for creating addons. Positional data was provided from the Internet Stellar Database (http://www.stellar-database.com).

The problem is after creating the STC file and making sure there were no errors in the code, I ran Celestia to find that 36 Oph B was not in the program. Neither the Stars option nor the select object option were able to find the star. Checking the console revealed no errors.

Here is the code I used. What did I do wrong?

#########################
# 36 Ophiuchi B.stc
#########################

950000 "36 Oph B"
{
RA 255.25852
Dec -26.60200
Distance 19.46926
SpectralType "K1V"
AppMag 5.11
};

Thanks in advance for your assistance,

Andrew

[selden]

delete the ; after the closing }

Celestia does not use semi-colons at all.

[ACrisp]

No such luck, I'm afraid. It's not working.

Even tried entering the name and imaginary HIP number in starnames.dat. Zilch.

For your information, I'm using Celestia version 1.3.2. I've gone over the format several times and I am at a total loss why this isn't working.

Any suggestions?

Andrew

[selden]

I really dunno: your example above works fine for me (without the ; of course ). I cut-and-pasted it into an STC file.


Have you looked at the console log to see if it says that it's loading the .STC file? or includes any complaints?

Type a tilde ( ~ = shift ` on my keyboard) to turn it on and off.

If the file isn't listed in Celestia's console log, check to make sure that the file is named whatever.STC and not whatever.STC.TXT or some other extraneous filetype.

When you use a Windows system for software development of any kind, you must disable "hide extensions for known file types". It's in the "My Computer" window's "Tools" menu, "Folder Options" item, "View" tab. You should change any other options that are hiding information, too.

[granthutchison]

Another thought: where are you putting the stc file? It should be in your extras folder, or in a subdirectory of that.

Grant

[selden]

If you haven't already, you should consider working through the examples in http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/addon-intro.html

Be sure to read all of the caveats. It's too easy to make subtle mistakes that Celestia won't complain about but which will prevent Addons from working.

[ACrisp]

Let us pause for a moment and curse Bill Gates' name...

It was being saved as .stc.txt rather than .stc. Fixed and the star is appearing now, though not quite where it's supposed to be, though I believe that is because of a discrepancy in the positional data provided by the Internet Stellar Database and the positional data for 36 Ophiuchi A that is in Celestia.

Thanks again!

Andrew

[ACrisp]

Positional data has been fixed, thanks primarily to the Hippacros database. The new position puts 36 Ophiuchi B at approximately 53 AU from 36 Ophiuchi A, which although not entirely accurate, is believable given its calculated orbit.

For those that may wish to use the star themselves, here is the final .stc data.

550000 "36 Oph B"
{
RA 258.838697
Dec -26.600049
Distance 19.52074
SpectralType "K1V"
AppMag 5.11
}

Andrew

[Rassilon]

Let us pause for a moment and curse Bill Gates' name...

It was being saved as .stc.txt rather than .stc. Fixed and the star is appearing now, though not quite where it's supposed to be, though I believe that is because of a discrepancy in the positional data provided by the Internet Stellar Database and the positional data for 36 Ophiuchi A that is in Celestia.

Thanks again!

Andrew

While explorer/my computer/whatever is open select Tools > Folder Options > View. Uncheck Hide file extentions for known file types. In Notepad when you save make sure you switch the Save as type to All files in the Save dialog box...

I curse Bill Gates for assuming I need that crap hidden!