A few more IAU official names

General physics and astronomy discussions not directly related to Celestia
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BrainDead
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A few more IAU official names

Post #1by BrainDead » 21.10.2006, 15:41

In my explorations of the Kuiper Belt and its objects, I noticed that
the IAU has given proper names to a few more of the bodies that lie
within the recently re-defined Kuiper Belt.

Just FYI, Pluto's very small and recently discovered moons are now named
"Nix" (the inner moon) and "Hydra" (the outer moon.) These WERE classified
as SP 2005 P1 and SP 2005 P2, respectively.

Also, 2003 UB 313 informally know as "Xena" has been officially named
"Eris" while its small moon has been named "Dysnomia." See the
following link for more information.

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/#eris

Don't know if you already knew this or not, but just thought I'd post these
names for those of us who don't make a living by exploring physics and the
universe in general. :wink:
Brain-Dead Bob

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Post #2by ElChristou » 21.10.2006, 16:42

Bob, If I'm not wrong, Grant already update the concerned files for those objects...
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Post #3by BrainDead » 21.10.2006, 17:14

ElChristou wrote:Bob, If I'm not wrong, Grant already update the concerned files for those objects...


Okay, thanks Chris...

It's just that all of MY files were not updated, and I just re-downloaded the
whole Celestia 1.4 Pre6 and 1.5. Didn't see these changes anywhere so I
just thought I'd mention it.

By the way, are these definitions located in Solarsys.SSC, Outersys.SSC and
Minormoons.SSC?

Maybe that's my confusion here. Seems like they can be defined in any of
these three SSC files. Would be easier (Just my opinion) if we had one
SINGLE SSC file for moons. :roll:

Thanks again, Bob
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Post #4by ElChristou » 21.10.2006, 17:27

BrainDead wrote:
ElChristou wrote:Bob, If I'm not wrong, Grant already update the concerned files for those objects...

Okay, thanks Chris...

It's just that all of MY files were not updated, and I just re-downloaded the
whole Celestia 1.4 Pre6 and 1.5. Didn't see these changes anywhere so I
just thought I'd mention it.

Take care, Bob


Strange, the outersys.ssc has been updated in CVS near the 13th of september...
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Post #5by ElChristou » 21.10.2006, 17:34

BrainDead wrote:...By the way, are these definitions located in Solarsys.SSC, Outersys.SSC and
Minormoons.SSC?...


Nix and Hydra are in numberedmoons.ssc, Eris and Dysnomia are in outersys.ssc...
Image

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Post #6by BrainDead » 21.10.2006, 18:31

ElChristou wrote:Nix and Hydra are in numberedmoons.ssc, Eris and Dysnomia are in outersys.ssc...


I see... Yet another SSC file to keep track of. Sorry, but I think you can see
why a particular moon's definition might be misplaced or confused with any other.

Is the numberedmoons.ssc file used to contain those moons which have NOT
yet received an official name from the IAU? Again, just curious here. Trying
to see if I can keep all of my definitions in one place now, or failing that,
I'd like to be able to know here to look for definitions in a logical (to me)
manner. :wink:

Thanks very much for your help here. I appreciate it.
Brain-Dead Bob



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Post #7by ElChristou » 21.10.2006, 18:50

Because sometimes I also get lost, have a look at:

http://shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=79878#79878

I suppose it would be nice on day to have someting like this...
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Post #8by Malenfant » 21.10.2006, 19:17

I see no good reason at all for why we need to have so many separate files for moons. I don't care if they're numbered or not, or if they're big or small - they're all still moons. I'd rather see them all merged into one file, as I described on ElChristou's thread.
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Post #9by BrainDead » 21.10.2006, 22:14

Malenfant wrote:I see no good reason at all for why we need to have so many separate files for moons. I don't care if they're numbered or not, or if they're big or small - they're all still moons. I'd rather see them all merged into one file, as I described on ElChristou's thread.


Well I absolutely HATE to admit it, but I agree wholeheartedly with Dr.
Malenfant here. :lol: (Sorry Doc, I just couldn't resist it...) :lol:

When you also take into consideration the way in which SSC files are
sometimes haphazardly added under the "extras" folder, you can really
find yourself looking at a LOT of SSC files when you're trying to locate a
particular moon's properties.

Thanks, Bob
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Post #10by Starshipwright » 21.10.2006, 22:41

I may be mistaken, but I think that the idea was to make having all of the moons an option.

I agree that it is confusing. Perhaps it could be handled like stars.dat, where there would be one file such as moons.ssc and you would have different options as to which version of the file you wanted.

I suppose that if you wanted to you could go to ALL of the trouble of text editing to get the .ssc files the way you want them.

Do you think that it would work better to have the .ssc files divided by type of object, ie: planets.ssc moons.ssc asteriods.ssc etc? That way it would be easy to know which .ssc file to look in. It would just be a matter of changing the Celestia.cfg file and making sure the files loaded in the correct order.

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Post #11by Malenfant » 21.10.2006, 22:45

Starshipwright wrote:I may be mistaken, but I think that the idea was to make having all of the moons an option.


That could still be done, if you add more "Class" options and a way to selectively display them (ie, majormoon, minormoon, numberedmoon etc). If you want to see them all, then show them all in the render options - if you just want major moons then just tick that box and only that class gets rendered, etc.
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Post #12by Malenfant » 25.10.2006, 01:47

chris wrote:
Malenfant wrote:
Starshipwright wrote:I may be mistaken, but I think that the idea was to make having all of the moons an option.

That could still be done, if you add more "Class" options and a way to selectively display them (ie, majormoon, minormoon, numberedmoon etc). If you want to see them all, then show them all in the render options - if you just want major moons then just tick that box and only that class gets rendered, etc.

I think Celestia's catalogs of multiple stars are as good as you'll get. If there was better stellar orbit data out there, we'd be using it :)

--Chris


I think you posted your reply to the wrong thread ;)
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Post #13by chris » 25.10.2006, 01:56

Malenfant wrote:I think you posted your reply to the wrong thread ;)


Oops! :oops:


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