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Adding a sky culture to Stellarium

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Kajaji
2021-03-14
2021-03-17
  • Kajaji

    Kajaji - 2021-03-14

    I have completed a new sky culture based on the Book of Fixed Stars by Al-Sufi (903-986AD).
    It seems that I cannot create a branch in GitHub to upload the files.
    How can I get access or send the sky culture for review?

     
  • gzotti

    gzotti - 2021-03-14

    Hi!

    Basically, you would make a private fork of Stellarium from github, add your files, and send a "pull request" to us.

    But... you have already made one based on as-Sufi (arabic). What have you changed? Is this a replacement, or a new one?

    Kind regards,
    Georg

     
  • Kajaji

    Kajaji - 2021-03-14

    The (arabic) sky culture was authored by Kutaibaa Akraa. My contribution was a star name list in Arabic. I have some reservations on calling this sky culture "Arabic", because it is based on Ptolemaic constellations and the star names are a mix of traditional Arabic names and names based on their positions in the figures of the Greek constellation like alpha PsA called: Fomalhaut meaning mouth of the fish referring to its position on the mouth of Piscis Austrinus.

    The significance of the (arabic) sky culture is that it displays the images of one of the most beautiful Arabic manuscript of the Book of Fixed Stars.

    The proposed Book of Fixed Stars sky culture is completely different. It is a way to reflect the star tables of Almagest as identified by Al-Sufi himself in his book by building a complete star catalog file with all ~ 1022 star names, with the primary name as the number of the star in the constellation and a secondary star name as the description as found in the tables of Al-Sufi book.
    Al-Sufi also adds identifications of traditional Arab stars in his book. Some of these identifications are of single stars and others for asterisms. If it is a single star, it is added to the star name. For example: Al-Sufi reported that the Arabs named the first star of UMi: The Kid. So alpha UMi is defined as:
    11767 |("UMi1")
    11767 |("The star on the end of the tail")
    11767|("The kid")
    TRANSLATORS: The Kid (Baby male goat) is the name of Polaris in Arabic.
    For asterisms, I constructed the asterisms lines and names to reflect these identifications.
    The sky culture is a result of an independent research done on several manuscripts of Al-Sufi book and the goal is to give a faithful representation of the book content.
    I used the stick figures with some correction of the (arabic) sky culture. They fit nicely with the descriptions in the tables.

     
  • gzotti

    gzotti - 2021-03-14

    Ah, this makes it very interesting then as a "single" skyculture with an actual focus on as-Sufi. (one particular author/book snapshot). Indeed, the current "arabic" is a Ptolemy/Sufi SC.

     
  • Alexander Wolf

    Alexander Wolf - 2021-03-16

    Khalid, could you re-check the name of constellatio Lyra - probably translatable name has error.

     
    • Kajaji

      Kajaji - 2021-03-16

      "Lyra" is the same name as in the western sky culture.
      In my system it gets translated correctly.

      What kind of error is it causing?

      On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 6:14 PM Alexander Wolf alexvwolf@users.sourceforge.net wrote:

      Khalid, could you re-check the name of constellatio Lyra - probably
      translatable name has error.


      Adding a sky culture to Stellarium
      https://sourceforge.net/p/stellarium/discussion/278769/thread/6826688826/?limit=25#28ee


      Sent from sourceforge.net because you indicated interest in
      https://sourceforge.net/p/stellarium/discussion/278769/

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      • Alexander Wolf

        Alexander Wolf - 2021-03-17

        I see artwork for constellation Lyra and this is definitely not lyra :)

        P.S. In the string "The desert natural gardin and the goats" what is "natural gardin"?

         
  • gzotti

    gzotti - 2021-03-17

    Alexander, there is the Greek story of the Lyra made from a turtle. See also our existing "arabic" skyculture. In terms of images taken from the Sufi manuscript, this is OK.

     
    • Alexander Wolf

      Alexander Wolf - 2021-03-17

      Ah! Thank you very much for explanation!

       
  • Kajaji

    Kajaji - 2021-03-17

    for lyra on a turtle shell, see this one in a Greek museum:
    http://kotsanas.com/photo/2102005-01.jpg

    Museum link:
    http://kotsanas.com/gb/exh.php?exhibit=2102005

    For "natural gardin", my mistake. It is "garden". I couldn't find a suitable translation of the Arabic name "Rawdah". Some has translated it as "pasture" and some has translated it as "garden", but actually it is the land becomes green with vegetation for a temporary period after rain in the desert. See attached image for one that lasts for about a month.

     
    • Alexander Wolf

      Alexander Wolf - 2021-03-17

      Thanks! The typo is fixed

       
  • gzotti

    gzotti - 2021-03-17

    Maybe you should give translators this hint:

    TRANSLATORS: Rawdah: a short time of vegetation in the desert after rainfall.

    Some other languages do have a particular word for this. German: Wüstenblüte.

    In English I see "spring flowers"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namaqua_National_Park

    Maybe "The desert spring flowers and the goats" ? (If "spring" is the season. Or just "desert flowers")

     
  • Kajaji

    Kajaji - 2021-03-17

    Thanks. helpful suggestion. It is actually the green vegetation, not necessarily flowering in a place where rain water accumulates in a shallow large pool and then dries up for the vegetation to grow. Kunitzsch used "die weide" and Schjellerup used "le jardin".