May/June Lite Challenge Entry: UNC 201.F

[Ascension]

OG6, that's some awesome calculating there, man. Very nice.

[jtougas]

Given your published diameter and a viewfield angle of 60 degrees, the camera is at an altitude of 9000 km.

It has a mass of 0.97 earths and a diameter of 11567.6 km, so its roche limit is at about 20,000 km.

Given its angular size (200 pixels, 1/6th the size of the planet) your moon would have the smallest diameter if it orbited at the roche limit. Assuming that the planet and moon have an angular separation of 15 degrees, using the law of cosines, we find that the minimum possible separation between the camera and the moon is about 28,800 km. Therefore, given the moon's angular diameter of 8.57 degrees (The viewfield is assumed to be 60 degrees, the moon is 200 pixels wide, and the image is 1400 pixels wide).

Therefore, I calculate that the moon is 4300 km in diameter, so if it has the same density as Earth's moon, it has a mass of 1.89 moons. Since tidal force varies with the cube of distance, and your moon is also about 20X closer to its parent than Earth's moon is to Earth, tidal forces on this planet will be over 15000 times stronger than on Earth. Therefore, the planet will almost certainly be tidally locked to its moon.

Your moon should have an orbit 7.69 hours long, and with tidal locking that should also be the planet's rotational period. However, your planet's rotational period is 25.12 hours.



In short, that moon looks a bit big. You might wanna scale it down. For comparison, our moon would be 12 pixels in diameter.

WOW..Thanks for that. Again just showing that I stick stuff where I think it might be "pretty" without the slightest concern about what actually IS.

[arsheesh]

Disproportionally scaled medium sized bodies aside, this map just keeps getting more awesome JT!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[jtougas]

Thanks everyone for all the kind words. I removed the moon as it was just being a giant hassle and not really adding anything to the map. I want to call this one done as it is FAR too easy to just start adding stuff to one of these and take it from being pretty good to ruined. This was a fun challenge and I got to write some more (always a plus for me) and I got to collaborate a bit with Tilt. Win Win Win.

###LATEST WIP###

[Diamond]

I think it was a good call getting rid of the moon. This looks just fan-damn-tastic.

[ravells]

Looking fab! The only small comment I can make is that the 'Screen Resolution / Image Source' label needs to be centred to the button background like the others.

[jtougas]

Carol Mayer sprinted down the corridor to the bridge. "Dammit" she said to herself, "I knew it. And of course the first time I leave the damn bridge in three days.." Her self narrative was cut short as the Nebraska lurched violently once again. Something had gone horribly wrong with David Hunter and his "Black Team". Apparently the residents of this planet had an issue with Interworld mining their minerals. The call had come down from the bridge that the small ship had fired on the Nebraska and worse still there were 6 more of the small agile craft making orbit. Finally reaching the bridge Mayer turned to her operations officer and barked for a report. The operations officer to her credit didn't seem fazed by the recent turn of events and calmly delivered her report. "Captain, the alien ships have made orbit and seem to be maneuvering to surround our vessel. The original ship has opened fire on us and we have sustained damage to the forward sensors and the leading edge of the hull. I have no report at this time of casualties." Mayer stood very close to the view-screen and stared at the little ship which was much closer now. What the hell had gone wrong she wondered to herself. She couldn't return fire not with the lockouts. She was almost ashamed of the thought but she almost wished the USMG and it's fighter bombers would arrive. Regardless she knew that this was the opening round of what was sure to be a devastating battle. She couldn't help but wonder if she would survive it...

Hmm...Maybe a little "cross challenge" tie in there...? Anyway thanks for all the feedback everyone as usual your comments are helping me make a better entry. I fixed the "button" issue. It was way too big in proportion to the other buttons so I fixed that along with the text. I also added some "indicators" along the sides of the screen maybe "X" and "Y" ? Sounds good to me.

###LATEST WIP###