Earth Observer (Two locations)

[Patrick]

I put together a lot of educational exercises for students using Stellarium. I have had great success with the program! One feature that I'd like to see is an "Earth Observer", similar to Solar System Observer, that allows the observation of Earth from a fixed point in space.

Two locations would be ideal. The first could be over the north pole at a good distance - enough to get the Moon's orbit in frame. Phases of the Moon exercises would utilize this location, as might tide exercises, etc. I currently use the Solar System Observer for this with a scaled Moon, but I cannot get enough detail to do what I'd like to for my students.

The second location would be at the Earth's L5 point, or better, between L5 and the Earth. Exercises involving the changes in season would benefit from this.

Should you decide to implement something like this, I would be more than happy to help test it, especially in a script environment.

Thank you!
Patrick Koehn
Eastern Michigan University

[Alexander Wolf (alexwolf)]

Thank you very much for using Stellarium in education. Adding a requested fixed points is difficult task because Stellarium has very limited functional for the putting a "free markers" (or a "free points") in the space. This limitation related to type of program - Stellarium is not a simulator. But you can use one workaround for your task - use a "virtual planet" for some points. Like a Solar System Observer. You can see elements of orbit for Solar System Observer in ssystem.ini file and add other required points in same way.

For example Earth Observer will using something like it:
[earth_observer]
albedo=0.
color=0., 0., 0.
coord_func=ell_orbit
halo=false
hidden=true
lighting=false
name=Earth Observer
orbit_AscendingNode=0
orbit_Eccentricity=0
orbit_Epoch=2451545.0
orbit_Inclination=43
orbit_LongOfPericenter=0
orbit_MeanLongitude=90
orbit_Period=100000000000
orbit_SemiMajorAxis=1000000
parent=Earth
radius=1.
rot_obliquity=90
tex_halo=star16x16.png
tex_map=lune.png

[Patrick (plkoehn)]

Thank you for the workaround! Is it possible to have this virtual planet
set up through a script, or called dynamically (somehow) so I don't need to
edit the students' ini files?

PLK

PLK

On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 12:31 PM, Alexander Wolf <<email address hidden>
> wrote:

> Thank you very much for using Stellarium in education. Adding a
> requested fixed points is difficult task because Stellarium has very
> limited functional for the putting a "free markers" (or a "free points")
> in the space. This limitation related to type of program - Stellarium is
> not a simulator. But you can use one workaround for your task - use a
> "virtual planet" for some points. Like a Solar System Observer. You can
> see elements of orbit for Solar System Observer in ssystem.ini file and
> add other required points in same way.
>
> For example Earth Observer will using something like it:
> [earth_observer]
> albedo=0.
> color=0., 0., 0.
> coord_func=ell_orbit
> halo=false
> hidden=true
> lighting=false
> name=Earth Observer
> orbit_AscendingNode=0
> orbit_Eccentricity=0
> orbit_Epoch=2451545.0
> orbit_Inclination=43
> orbit_LongOfPericenter=0
> orbit_MeanLongitude=90
> orbit_Period=100000000000
> orbit_SemiMajorAxis=1000000
> parent=Earth
> radius=1.
> rot_obliquity=90
> tex_halo=star16x16.png
> tex_map=lune.png
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1592921
>
> Title:
> Wishlist: Earth Observer (Two locations)
>
> Status in Stellarium:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> I put together a lot of educational exercises for students using
> Stellarium. I have had great success with the program! One feature
> that I'd like to see is an "Earth Observer", similar to Solar System
> Observer, that allows the observation of Earth from a fixed point in
> space.
>
> Two locations would be ideal. The first could be over the north pole
> at a good distance - enough to get the Moon's orbit in frame. Phases
> of the Moon exercises would utilize this location, as might tide
> exercises, etc. I currently use the Solar System Observer for this
> with a scaled Moon, but I cannot get enough detail to do what I'd like
> to for my students.
>
> The second location would be at the Earth's L5 point, or better,
> between L5 and the Earth. Exercises involving the changes in season
> would benefit from this.
>
> Should you decide to implement something like this, I would be more
> than happy to help test it, especially in a script environment.
>
> Thank you!
> Patrick Koehn
> Eastern Michigan University
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/stellarium/+bug/1592921/+subscriptions
>

[Alexander Wolf (alexwolf)]

Sorry, adding virtual planets through scripts are not possible. In the theory you can use a network disk for using one settings for all students' but it's may be very difficult for OS X instances.

Hint: CLI option --config-file (or -c) enables using an alternative name for the config file and CLI option --user-dir (or -u) enables using an alternative user data directory.

[Alexander Wolf (alexwolf)]

Of course you can prepare an self-made installer package of Stellarium with custom ssystem.ini or we can include a couple virtual planets in main package, but you should prepared a patch for ssystem.ini in this case.

[Alexander Wolf (alexwolf)]

Hmm... I think "should" is wrong form here - more correct is "please prepare a patch with virtual planets" :)

[Patrick (plkoehn)]

Again, thank you! I greatly appreciate the response!

PLK

PLK

On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 2:30 PM, Alexander Wolf <email address hidden>
wrote:

> Hmm... I think "should" is wrong form here - more correct is "please
> prepare a patch with virtual planets" :)
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1592921
>
> Title:
> Wishlist: Earth Observer (Two locations)
>
> Status in Stellarium:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> I put together a lot of educational exercises for students using
> Stellarium. I have had great success with the program! One feature
> that I'd like to see is an "Earth Observer", similar to Solar System
> Observer, that allows the observation of Earth from a fixed point in
> space.
>
> Two locations would be ideal. The first could be over the north pole
> at a good distance - enough to get the Moon's orbit in frame. Phases
> of the Moon exercises would utilize this location, as might tide
> exercises, etc. I currently use the Solar System Observer for this
> with a scaled Moon, but I cannot get enough detail to do what I'd like
> to for my students.
>
> The second location would be at the Earth's L5 point, or better,
> between L5 and the Earth. Exercises involving the changes in season
> would benefit from this.
>
> Should you decide to implement something like this, I would be more
> than happy to help test it, especially in a script environment.
>
> Thank you!
> Patrick Koehn
> Eastern Michigan University
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/stellarium/+bug/1592921/+subscriptions
>

[Alexander Wolf (alexwolf)]

Earth Observer and asteroid in Earth's L4 will be available in next beta.

[Patrick (plkoehn)]

I appreciate the update!

Happy Holidays,

PLK

PLK

On Thu, Nov 24, 2016 at 9:23 AM, Alexander Wolf <email address hidden>
wrote:

> ** Changed in: stellarium
> Milestone: 1.0.0 => 0.15.1
>
> ** No longer affects: stellarium/0.15
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1592921
>
> Title:
> Earth Observer (Two locations)
>
> Status in Stellarium:
> In Progress
>
> Bug description:
> I put together a lot of educational exercises for students using
> Stellarium. I have had great success with the program! One feature
> that I'd like to see is an "Earth Observer", similar to Solar System
> Observer, that allows the observation of Earth from a fixed point in
> space.
>
> Two locations would be ideal. The first could be over the north pole
> at a good distance - enough to get the Moon's orbit in frame. Phases
> of the Moon exercises would utilize this location, as might tide
> exercises, etc. I currently use the Solar System Observer for this
> with a scaled Moon, but I cannot get enough detail to do what I'd like
> to for my students.
>
> The second location would be at the Earth's L5 point, or better,
> between L5 and the Earth. Exercises involving the changes in season
> would benefit from this.
>
> Should you decide to implement something like this, I would be more
> than happy to help test it, especially in a script environment.
>
> Thank you!
> Patrick Koehn
> Eastern Michigan University
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/stellarium/+bug/1592921/+subscriptions
>

[Alexander Wolf (alexwolf)]

Earth Observer has been released in version 0.15.1