Voyager 2

[ElPelado]

today i was bored and i wanted to make a trip into the space. so i get on the voyager 2, to study his fly-by's near jupiter, saturn, uranus and neptune. JUST AMAZING!
but most surprised me was the fact that it was very very very close to neptune and uranus. i dont know if its a mistake or what, but it was les than 50,000 km from neptune i think. was that an error on the xyz file??
i think that if it had been so close, it would have crashed on neptune...
can some one tell me?

[JackHiggins]

[shameless plug]
Well if you're using *my* voyager ssc it's accurate...
[/shameless plug]

Nah the 50,000km neptune flyby is really accurate- I was amazed the first time I saw the whole grand tour in celestia too! Voyager 1's flyby of Titan is even than Voyager 2-neptune IMO...!

[bh]

I would like to try that...how do you do it?...yours, incredibly stupid (and not good with xyzs)...bh.

It's probably an age thing!

[JackHiggins]

I would like to try that...

Try what? The grand tour?

Well heres what I did...
1. Set time back to before the Voyager 2 launch (which was before Voyager 1 remember)
2. Split screen vertically (one pane left/right)
3. Go to voyager 1 in the left one, voyager 2 in the right one.
4. speed up time bay some insane amount (1,000,000x or so)
5. Watch the flight towards jupiter (locked & tracking for both craft, to keep jup & voyager in FOV)
6. As you get close with each of the craft, slow down time, unlock & un-track, and pan the camera around to see each moon as you fly past. (Since theyre both flying past at different times you don't have to keep switching panes)
7. Repeat steps 4-6 for saturn...
8. After saturn, delete the voyager 1 pane. All it does after this is take the Solar system "family portrait" (think pale blue dot) in like 1991 or so.
9. Repeat steps 4-6 for voyager 2 as it flies past uranus (and it's moons) & neptune (and it's moons, mostly for triton)


Feel free to zoom in, zoom out, speed up time etc etc etc - enjoy the show!

Some of the best moments (in no particular order)

1. Comparing voyager 2's earth & moon together pic with the same as simulated by celestia
2. Voyager 2 - ganymede
3. Voyager 1 - io
4. Voyager 1 - titan
5. Voyager 1 - leaving saturn
6. Voyager 2 - miranda (it's the first pic in my gallery)
7. Voyager 2 - uranus ring plane crossing
8. Voyager 2 - incredibly close neptune flyby
9. Voyager 2 - triton.

...

And the amazing thing is that 70's technology is still working, nearly 30 years later, at over 89AU and 71 AU out!

Hurrah for Voyager!

[Kendrix]

Yeah I love making the Grand Tour too ! It's something I was dreaming for 15 years and that I can finally do with Celestia the Wondeful !!!