Re: [Xplanet-development] Let's talk about Xplanet 1.0.1

[Hari N. <ha...@al...>]

Quoting Douglas Bollinger <dc...@sd...>:

> I've been playing with Xplanet 1.0.1 for a bit
> and have a few questions.
> 
> (1) Any chance the orbit feature will come
> back?  I really miss that as I like to see the
> Earth make a spin while I'm at my computer.

It won't be implemented the same way it used to
be, which was very limited.  You can use the
-origin_file option.  The disadvantage here is
that you have to specify the whole orbit ahead of
time and it won't run indefinitely.  

I am going to add an option called
-dynamic_origin, where you can specify a file with
one position in it (radius, lat, lon), and will
read this file and place the observer there before
each rendering.  You will be able to update the
dynamic origin file using the -pre and -post
command options.
 
> (2) Does anyone have a bigger star file that
> will work well with xplanet?
> I appreciate that the stars are now accurate,
> but it looks rather barren around the Earth
> with the current star file.

Try looking at http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr, which 
has a lot of astronomical data.  It's a little
difficult to navigate, but there are a number of
star catalogs available.  You will just need to
create a new file from these databases with the
proper format for xplanet (magnitude, RA, Dec).

Alternatively, just try displaying the earth with
a smaller value for -range.

Hari