Stellarium

Hello Everyone, First, thanks for the nice software. I'm reading books about astronomy due to the use of Stellarium, to understand better the movement of planets, orbits, etc. Well, I have a question about how to use Stellarium (or any other software, site, place, whatever) to track the spaceship that is now travelling to Mars to deploy the new robot of NASA called Curiosity. It's possible to use the program to track it? For example, how far (in KM) or to adjust in the screen Mars and the spaceship (just two points and I know that it can't be represented linearly) of the trajectory of the Curiosity? I'm liking to be reading books about astronomy while listening Jazz and will be awesome to use a simulation to let me know where almost exactly the spaceship of NASA is. Thank you very much and sorry for any English errors, I've learned it alone too.

You can edit the Solar System configuration file and add the Mars Science Laboratory as a comet/asteroid in orbit around the Sun. :) You can get data from NASA's HORIZONS site: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi 1. Set "Ephemeris type" to "Orbital elements" (click on the "change" link to do it) 2. Set "Target body" to "Mars Science Laboratory". 3. Click on the "change" link for "Time Span". In the text that opens, click on the "switch to discrete-times form" link. A list of fields will open. There should be only one date. Click "Use Specified Times". 4. Set "Display/Output" to "plain text". 5. Click on the "Generate Ephemeris" button. A text-only page should appear, containing the heliocentric orbital elements for MSL/Curiosity for that day. As you probably won't cope with deciphering the orbital elements, you can use Andreas Steinel's parser website: http://projects.familie-steinel.de/stellarium-comet-jpl/ Copy the text from the HORIZONS page in the upper field, then click on the "Parse Input" button. Results should appear in the lower field. You need to append them to Stellarium's ssystem.ini file. The parser will decide that it is a comet, so you can edit the "name=" line to make it easier to find. :) I got this output: [Mars_Science_Laboratory] # Data taken from JPL/HORIZONS # correct for the specified time frame: # Start Time : A.D. 2011-Dec-05 00:00:00.0000 CT # Stop Time : A.D. 2011-Dec-05 00:00:00.0000 CT name = Mars Science Laboratory parent = Sun coord_func = comet_orbit radius = 10 oblateness = 0.0 albedo = 1 lighting = true halo = true color = 1.0,1.0,1.0 tex_halo = star16x16.png tex_map = nomap.png orbit_Epoch = 2455900.500000000 orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2455883.0353791732 orbit_PericenterDistance = 0.9845366101028623 orbit_Eccentricity = 0.220752885650378 orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 170.532850799024 orbit_AscendingNode = 243.2149546408142 orbit_Inclination = 1.684182777090319

Thank you very much for the extensive help. I'll try it later/tomorrow. Thanks again!

Is this for the windows version? I don't see where I can do this for the MAC version.

crutchman , Every version of Stellarium uses a ssystem.ini file to store the Solar System data. Different operating systems just put it in different places. If you have the Solar System Editor plug-in enabled, it should have created a copy automatically in: HomeDirectory/Library/Preferences/Stellarium/data (Where "HomeDirectory" is your home directory. :) Note that to see that directory, you may need to change your settings to show hidden and system files.)

Thanks daggerstab. I noticed with Lion you were right that I needed to open the hidden files i.e. Library so I could get to the data file. Up and running.