Celestia Forums

OK I decided to incoperate the new code for stc files to generate clusters of stars and have noticed a problem... Orientation... Can I use the same orientation code that I would use for galaxies on the baycenter? I will give it a shot and see and if not then I think its going to be manditory to allow orientation to be set for baycenters if theres a future in stars in other galaxies... They are oriented to the milky way currently as you can see in this picture I had to make the cluster a complete sphere and the main population of stars is plainly visible showing the offset the orientation is set too currently... I suppose I could use inclination and MeanAnomaly but then I would have tons of stars showing up in a line more than a sphere...

Nope Axis does not work... Any ideas anyone?

Wow! How big is this cluster? It looks like with only one cluster, you can fill the Galaxy with stars! Congratulations Rassilon

Not entirely... Now I am thinking I will have to create several barycenters with small clusters and plot them in a disc pattern to fill the galaxy based on its axis... I dont even know where to start with the calculations on this...

Ras,

RA & Dec as used in STC files are Equatorial coordinates. Their orientation is not related to the orienation of any galaxy, including our own Milky Way. I think you need to create stars in Galactic coordinates (which are aligned with the Milky Way) and then do a conversion from Galactic coordinates into Equatorial coordinates when writing STC files.

Orbital parameters are different, however: they're in Ecliptic coordinates. Reference Frames, which allow you to specify which coordinate system to use, currently are available only when writing SSC files. They are not yet available for use in STC files So for orbits, you'll have to do a coordinate conversion from Galactic to Ecliptic.

Ras,
obviously you mixed up equatorial and galactic coordinates. You need a converter between the two. That's also what I did, when I composed my star cluster in the MilkyWay.
The respective formulae you find in many places.

Fridger

Well theres no way I know or orienting the barycenter so all those calculations would do me no good in that respect... I need to orient the orbital paths along the barycenter to equal the galactic coordinates as you mentioned but unfortunately I do not know the proper command to do so... Angle does not work neither does Orientation... And reading further in the forums I found no mention of such commands existing as of yet... So Im sort of stuck creating barycenters plotted within the galactic plane with a small amount of stars clustered within... Now I may be able to use those calculations for this... But it will take some time for me to tear it apart...