Hi Georg, Thank you for raising my awareness of new ephermides from JPL which is very useful to know. I'd like to read around them and find out if any are superior to our current methods (bearing in mind that Stellarium's current VSOP87 algorithm I think is optimised for speed). But the DE408 you mention is described as "a very long time span ephemeris" so it may not be accurate enough for day-to-day usage. DE405 is the one I have used before.
Out of interest, did you have a timespan in mind? I know of a numerical integration tool but that would be overkill, particularly as the stellar positions are only accurate to ~10^4 years or so. Many thanks, Thomas On 26 March 2012 19:02, Georg Zotti <georg.zo...@univie.ac.at> wrote: > Hmm, if you are good in astronomy, maybe you could help fixing some real > astronomical issues before going into games? It takes quite some time to > find your way through the code until you understand how things work > together. Not every enthusiastic programmer is knowledgable about > astronomy, and tracking down errors in the astronomical model takes some > time and knowledge. Things I immediately recall are the DeltaT, fixed > ecliptic, lunar rotation, inner-planet phases and the bug about not being > able to observe from the north pole. One extension useful for prehistory > could be to replace VSOP by DE408 or maybe still something else. On > usability, it would be great to have a tool that goes e.g. from sunrise to > sunrise or moonrise to moonrise (keep moon on same altitude in east or > west, resp., or even better, take the current landscape image into > account), or a tool to find and display heliacal rising/setting of stars > or/and planets. > > On the graphical side, extinction for meshes is still open, or better > methods to match constellation figure textures. > > Just a few ideas. > > Kind regards, > Georg > > On Mo, 26.03.2012, 15:10, Reaves, Timothy wrote: >> What is the communities response to this proposal? Anyone have an >> opinion >> they care to share? >> >> >> >> >> On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 8:47 PM, Rimas Trumpa >> <rimas.tru...@gmail.com>wrote: >> >>> Hello, >>> >>> I am interested in taking part in the Google Summer of Code 2012. >>> I have an idea of my own but I'm not sure if it's attractive enough or >>> if >>> it isn't being implemented at the moment by someone else. >>> The idea is on a very early stage but I would be very glad to hear your >>> opinion on it. >>> It's "Sky Quiz" - a Stellarium plugin (or a built-in feature) which >>> allows >>> users to take various quizzes on the objects of the night sky. It could >>> be >>> anything - from planets and constellations to Messier objects and >>> brightest >>> stars. >>> The quizzes would be highly customizable. User could choose if the quiz >>> is >>> timed, if it's "identify the object" (MCQ) or "find the object" type (or >>> maybe even mixed), the list of objects (or their types) and so on... >>> It would be possible to create your own quizzes and to share them with >>> other users. >>> Alexander thinks that this idea is very hard to implement. Yes, I agree, >>> it's definitely more than a few hours of programming, but Google Summer >>> of >>> Code is a 3 month long project so I expect to spend 400-500 hours on >>> this >>> during summer and I believe it is possible to complete it in time. >>> I made some very rough drafts of the Sky Quiz in action: >>> http://www.laisva.lt/stellarium/planet.png >>> http://www.laisva.lt/stellarium/orion.png >>> >>> "Sky Quiz" would be useful for teachers (easy and interesting way to >>> test >>> the performance of the class), students ("practice-mode" to improve >>> their >>> knowledge) and all the enthusiasts of astronomy. >>> I have participated in quite a few astronomy competitions myself and I >>> didn't manage to find any decent software to help me to prepare for the >>> observation part (which usually requires some identification of the sky >>> objects). >>> >>> A few words about me: >>> I'm a 20-year-old undergraduate student of Software Engineering with >>> Management (BSc) at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. >>> I have represented my home country (Lithuania) in a several >>> international >>> Olympiads. I should probably mention the 4th International Olympiad on >>> Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2010, Beijing, China, where I won a Gold >>> medal. >>> It would be really nice to spend my summer improving a software that I >>> like very much (and to get paid for doing so). :) >>> >>> Best regards, >>> Rimas Trumpa >>> >>> ----------------------------- >>> RimasT on irc.freenode.net >>> rimas.trumpa on Skype >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> This SF email is sponsosred by: >>> Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here >>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Stellarium-pubdevel mailing list >>> Stellarium-pubdevel@lists.sourceforge.net >>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stellarium-pubdevel >>> >>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> This SF email is sponsosred by: >> Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here >> http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure_______________________________________________ >> Stellarium-pubdevel mailing list >> Stellarium-pubdevel@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stellarium-pubdevel >> > > > -- > DI Dr Georg Zotti > Archaeoastronomy / ASTROSIM > VIAS-Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science > University of Vienna > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > This SF email is sponsosred by: > Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here > http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure > _______________________________________________ > Stellarium-pubdevel mailing list > Stellarium-pubdevel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stellarium-pubdevel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure _______________________________________________ Stellarium-pubdevel mailing list Stellarium-pubdevel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/stellarium-pubdevel
