Topic: Where exactly is the Ceril VII Star System.

[kmanktelow]

Hi, All,

This is probably a dumb question, but I've just spent the last couple of hours playing with the Astronomy program Celestia (downloadable from http://www.shatters.net/celestia/index.html with the 2,000,000 Star Add-on database from http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/extrasolar_stars.php) and I've been trying to work out exactly where the Kulthean solar system actually is, in space. 

From the starmap given in 'Imperial Crisis' the Ceril star is about 79LY from 3 Ceti, which by my reckoning using Celestia makes it the star HIP 993/HD 805/SAO 128638, which is just over 79LY from it. This could account for the movement in the next 10,000 or so years.

The only problem with this is that HIP 993 is a spectral class G5 star, and is around 57 times brighter than our own sun- and is 8 times the size- although they have got similar surface temperatures.

Does anyone else have any better ideas? Terry?

This may sound like a stupid question, but one of the really useful things with Celestia is that not only can you 'go to' the star in question- but you can also revolve around it. And, probably even more useful, you can add planets, moons, spacecraft, etc, around Stars using it's add-on system (I've currently got all the Babylon 5 spacecraft orbiting Epsilon Eridani III- with the Shadow/Drahk vessels orbiting Z'ha Dhum. Sad, I know!)

But, wouldn't it be nice to be able to view the stars that are actually seen from Kulthea?!?!?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

All the Best,

Kevin.

[markc]

 I do not know but I think they just might have made up some star system information or even the star system information back then was different than we have now. We have ahd some good advances in the astronomy field since the 80's and it would not suprise me one bit if they were slightly off in some way.

 MDC

[Terry K. Amthor]

Yep, we fudged a lot back then, though I tried to find some kind of 3D software that would let me view starmaps. There were a few clunky things but it was 20 years ago!

A better candidate would be HP 1082 maybe,and we are a bit off on our measurements. Is there any way t use Celestia to create the kulthean solar system from scratch? Now THAT would be cool. I wanted to do it in Bryce but too much work.

[kmanktelow]

Hi, Terry,

Yes, Celestia allows the creation of complete solar systems- replete with Orbital Instations, Space Craft, moons, satellites. There's add-ons for Star Trek, Babylon 5 (I've got all the B-5 addons), and various other fictional Solar Systems.

It just mean understanding the *.ssc file structure (editable in Wordpad) to set up the objects, orbits and texture maps.

I've started to look at the Solar System Construction file format- and I'll have another look this evening. We're looking after the Grandchildren today.

All the Best,

Kevin.

[markc]

 I have one but cannot remember the name right now but they have the features you talked about above as well as the ability to download all the star info for our universe for 50ly and 100ly from earth. I will check later but thoes are the numbers that stick in my mind.

 O the good old days of HP. I have an HP 48SX that I need to see if I can get the screen replaced on as I love reverse pollish! It also has more memory than my first computer and the Chem and Phys add on card.

 I think the program is Astro Synthsis but again I will check later and get back to you.

MDC

[kmanktelow]

Hi, Terry et al,

Well, I downloaded 'System Maker for Celestia' which can take and modify existing *.ssc files- allowing the addition of Planets, Moons, Spacecraft around existing Stars. I duplicated the Epsilon Eridani 3 files and modified them (spending plenty of time swearing as I converted miles to Kilometres and millions of miles to Astronomical units!)

Mind you, it still means learning about orbital eccentricities, semi-major axes, Longitude of Pericenters, etc...

Stuck the whole caboodle around HIP 993, only to find that mean surface of Kulthea would be- cue drum roll- 531 K (About 257.85 C or 496.13 F.)

Whoops!!!!

I've tried sticking it around HD 1082 and HIP 1082, and the mean surface temperatures would be ridiculous to say the least....
Although, around HIP 1082 the surface temperature would only be around 98 C

*sigh*

Looks like we might have to insert a suitable star into a suitable location into the *.stc file, then work from there. Or, attempt to find a suitable G-II class star roughly the same distance as the Ceril system is supposed to be away from the Sun.

Ahhhh, the joys of Astronomy!

As for other Astronomy packages, they will be using similar databases to Celestia: Hipparcos, SAO, HDE, etc. The extra database available from the Celestia Motherlode adds over 2,000,000 stars to Celestia. When you view the Solar System from outside the Galaxy, you literally get a shell of stars centred around the Sun- I've got no ideas how wide across it is, in Lightyears. But, I would imagine that it includes just about every star within 100 LY of Earth. The Ceril system, according to Spacemaster is only 89.58 LY away....

So, I'd better keep digging in the Star Browser!

All the Best,

Kevin.

[dutch206]

Wet blanket time, here.  Does your campaign really require that level of realism?  Will your players EVER ask to see Kulthea in relation to Earth? 

[pastaav]

Looks like we might have to insert a suitable star into a suitable location into the *.stc file, then work from there. Or, attempt to find a suitable G-II class star roughly the same distance as the Ceril system is supposed to be away from the Sun.

Check what the program gives for temperature on earth...my bet would be that the program does not properly model a planet with greenhouse gases. To get a planet that is suitable for living you must have a system that in the absence of life is much colder than what we have on earth. The presence of greenhouse gases have a great impact on the resulting temperature of the planet.

[kmanktelow]

Hi, Pastaav, Dutch206,

Celestia gives the Earths' mean surface temperature as 271 K, whilst wikipedia lists it as being 287- about 14 C. So, there's about 16 degrees difference- which isn't too bad considering it's a free program.

As near as I can tell, the mean surface temperature is modelled from the Spectral Class, surface temperature and size of the nearest solar body(ies- in the case of binary systems.) The problem with the stars tried, is that they are generally more massive than our Sun, even if they have a slightly lower surface temperature. But, this still gives a much greater energy output- hence a much higher mean surface temperature.

I was looking at 20 Leonis Minoris, which a web source gives a G2V star- but for some reason Celestia only lists it as a G1V star (cooler). Could be that the Celestia database needs updating based on newer stellar surveys...

Hmm, I can see Dutch206's point, in the Players knowing where Kulthea is in relation to the Earth (unless you are using Spacemaster). But, it would be nice to model the system so that you could for instance accurately show your players the moons in the night sky, the constellations- or for the GM something that would be handy would be the ability to work out when and where the next solar eclipse will be.

And, from Terry's point of view- he's spent so much time developing Kulthea, etc, it would be nice for him to be able to actually see his creation 'working'. (Or does that make him sound like Dr. Frankenstein?)
Or at least that was my initial thought.

All the Best,

Kevin.

[kmanktelow]

Hi, All,

No Textures, asteroids, only Kulthea has any moons, etc. But, the planets are in place, and orbiting quite nicely!

I've upload a low-res screen grab, and will try to add some more as time permits.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28576267@N02/2667428784/

(Just hoping the link works- it's the first time I've used Flikr!)

All the Best,

Kevin.

[Terry K. Amthor]

Hi, All,

No Textures, asteroids, only Kulthea has any moons, etc. But, the planets are in place, and orbiting quite nicely!

I've upload a low-res screen grab, and will try to add some more as time permits.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28576267@N02/2667428784/

(Just hoping the link works- it's the first time I've used Flikr!)

All the Best,

Kevin.

Coooooool!

[kmanktelow]

Thanks Terry!

I've uploaded some more screen shots, along with some Kulthea related 3D-Renders....

http://flickr.com/photos/28576267@N02/

All the Best,

Kevin.

[mathhatt]

Very nice work

[Fidoric]

I think that a planet natural radioactivity also modifies its surface temperature.

[kmanktelow]

Hi, All,

Just uploaded some more grabs of the various planets in the Kulthean system- textured this time. Not 100% happy with some of the Textures- I've utilized the defaults that came with Celestia.

Kulthea is still untextured however...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28576267@N02/

I have added the asteroid belt, as well- but that needs some fine tuning.

If anyone wants the *.ssc files to use with Celestia, drop me an email telling me where to email it (I could probably just paste it into a post- but I don't know how big the posts are allowed to be- and the asteroid belt ssc file is pretty huge!)

I'm still not 100% sure, but to use you might have to download the 2,000,000 star database from the Celestia motherlode:

http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/extrasolar_stars.php

As I don't know if 20 Leonis Minoris/HIP 49081 is included in the default installation...?

Just a warning if you've got an older Graphics card/PC, that Celestia is very CPU/Graphics intensive- and supports 5 different display systems- giving varying levels of visual effects. (My ATI X600 only supports four of them. Some older cards might only support the Basic mode...)

All the Best,

Kevin.

[markc]

 The program that I have is Astrosynthesis v2.0, I did not go to thier home page but I do think the have all the system data for download for 100ly.

MDC

[Terry K. Amthor]

Again, very cool. Can you show what Orhan and Varin would look like from the surface of Kulthea (I've always wanted to see how big Orhan would look in 3D; I think someone calculated it way back, but it was just a disk)

[kmanktelow]

Hi, Terry et al,

I've uploaded a picture showing Orhan, Varin and Mikori, with Field of View set to 42 degrees, which approximates the human eye, and the 'camera' on Kulthea's surface.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28576267@N02/2678415860/sizes/o/

I realised whilst I was advancing time that Mikori was the wrong size. When I checked in System Maker, I found that I hadn't put a size in for Mikori. And, worse, after I corrected that oversight and uploaded the screen shot, I then realised that I'd converted all of your diameters from miles to kilometres- and entered them into System Makers radius fields. Whoops!!!

So, effectively, all the objects are actually double the size they should be.

More haste, less speed!

So, I need to go back through and halve the radii of all the planets and moons.....

"Kevin, you complete eeediiiiiooooooottttt!!!!!!!!!!!!"

So, here is the link for the size corrected moons:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28576267@N02/2677683627/sizes/o/

Obviously, the easiest thing to do to fit the apparent sizes of the moons with how Terry envisions them, would be to modify the orbital sizes for the moons.

All the Best,

Kevin

[Vince]

That doesn't look good, even the big one picture show us a very little moons. Maybe you have put the data correctly, but i am pretty sure this isn't the size Terry was thinking to be from a viewer in Khulthea, especially Orhan.

[Terry K. Amthor]

I'm not sure if I ever specified Orhan's diameter, but it's gravity is 40% of earth's, which would make it as big as Mars. Mars is 4200 miles in diameter, 2x that of the moon. Orhan is 210,000 miles from earth, 30,000 miles closer than our moon.

So I think it would appear much larger, at least 2x the size of our moon--though not as big as on Emer I; there must be some of that 'horizon size-illusion' going on there...

Given all that of course, normally Orhan would have to be orbiting much faster or it would fall into Kulthea. But not much about Orhan is normal.