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.