Earth shadow markers - helps for Satellite ecplipses

[Alexander Wolf]

Original request: http://sourceforge.net/p/stellarium/discussion/278769/thread/228cf683

We from an Astronomy Club are regularly observing Geostationary satellites flaring shortly before they enter the earth's shadow during equinox season.
While the satellites do turn from light to dark grey when entering the shadow of the earth, would it be possible to additionally
1. Show a ring, representing the edge of the shadow/umbra
2. Show a ring with width (optional) that takes into account the diffusion of atmosphere to a certain level (variable by user?) - the penumbra-width, if you will.
3. we may even show a user-definable outer ring that could be used as a area where commonly the satellites start flaring noticeably
This would help to know, when a satellite is going to fade into darkness and also when they are likely to flare.
Thanks!

[Theo Wellington (tmwellington)]

I'd like to second this request, although for a different reason. Teaching about eclipses, it is often useful to put up a marker showing the Earth's shadow at the distance of the Moon to show audiences how the Moon misses it most of the time. This might make a good script if not an added feature. Thanks!

[Alexander Wolf (alexwolf)]

It's not a markers of shadow but I improved coloring and rendering artificial satellites (include their labels) in the Earth shadows for both modes.

A tentative fix has been committed as revision 7709 of the trunk branch of Stellarium's Bazaar repository at Launchpad: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~stellarium/stellarium/trunk/revision/7709