stars visible, but not selectable (clickable)

[gzotti]

First I want to congratulate you all for the improvements in user interface and utility of 13.0. Where I once used scripts, 13.0 has now has better built in functionality, e.g. user preset zooms and direct cursor coordinate readout. I use Stellarium heavily for many specialized astronomical and ephemeris problems where visual representations greatly aid the process. For example, identifying unlabeled photographic star fields, times, magnitude limits, views from other bodies, etc. The list goes on.

Compared to 12.4, my very first observation using 13.0 was unfortunately disappointing. I found that a small fraction of the visible stars was clickable for the star details. I found I could zoom in and the stars I could "click" did get fainter, however there were still a large fraction of stars I couldn't click. This is very frustrating. 12.4 permitted me to click virtually all stars that are visible, even stars that weren't visible if I recall.

I evaluated the fraction of stars "clickable" at 20° FoV and 60° FoV (my default). These fields were centered at the zenith, and the light pollution =2. I used the Tycho 1 & 2 star catalog to evaluate the clickable fractions. This analysis is 0th order, but revealing none the less.

60° Faintest Mag Visible ≈ 6.8 Faintest Mag Clickable ≈4.7 Fraction of Stars Clickable ≈ 10%
20° Faintest Mag Visible ≈ 9.1 Faintest Mag Clickable ≈7.1 Fraction of Stars Clickable ≈ 10%

Is there a way to change this "clickable" sensitivity to magnitude?

I think that for a given reasonable FoV, the inability to access data for 90% of the stars is not right. Zooming in to some unknown setting for many stars I'm interested in is an unnecessary pain. Stars that are visible within any FoV should be clickable for data.

If not adjustable, the 13.0 algorithm that determines star magnitude for "clicking" should be changed to include most, if not all, stars visibly displayed within any FoV.

Thanks!
Jon Seamans

[Alexander Wolf (alexwolf)]

Diff: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~stellarium/stellarium/trunk/revision/6964

[Khalid AlAjaji (kajaji)]

May be it was meant as a feature

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~stellarium/stellarium/trunk/revision/6356

Many files were modified compared to 6964

[gzotti (georg-zotti)]

Maybe, but what is the advantage? If something is visible, it should be selectable.