Case of the giant asteroids ... Solved!

Starshipwright · Post #1by **Starshipwright** » 08.10.2006, 23:12

The Main Belt Asteroids Abridged add-on from the Celestia Mother Lode has been impossible to use because the asteriods created were HUGE, bigger than the sun.

It was a simple error. In the .ssc file the exponent in the radius measurement was stated as a positve

Radius 3.81474e+06

When it should have been a nagative

Radius 3.81474e-06

When this is changed the asteroids appear normal size.

Ain't Replace great!

Malenfant · Post #2by **Malenfant** » 09.10.2006, 07:11

shouldn't that make them a few metres across now?!

Hamiltonian · Post #3by **Hamiltonian** » 09.10.2006, 12:21

Malenfant wrote:shouldn't that make them a few metres across now?!

Millimetres, since Radius is in kilometres. Some of the objects in the ssc would be reduced to tens of microns. I don't think that's the solution.
The original data doesn't give radius, but planetary absolute mag (H). I would guess the ssc author made an error when converting H to radius.

Malenfant · Post #4by **Malenfant** » 09.10.2006, 15:43

I seem to recall that one of those files had oversized asteroids to make them more visible anyway. I think that high radius was set deliberately for that purpose.

rthorvald · Post #5by **rthorvald** » 09.10.2006, 15:49

Malenfant wrote:I seem to recall that one of those files had oversized asteroids to make them more visible anyway. I think that high radius was set deliberately for that purpose.

If i remember correctly, she exaggerated the scale deliberately, for a demonstration in some sort of museum exhibition on space.

- rthorvald

Starshipwright · Post #6by **Starshipwright** » 10.10.2006, 08:41

Sorry, I guess I forgot the basic rules:

Always verify fully before you announce,
What looks like a simple answer is very often a wrong answer,
Make sure you have all the relevent information, like what the original data looked like.