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Thread: something to design a planetary system? or just a single planet w 2 moons?

  1. #1

    Question something to design a planetary system? or just a single planet w 2 moons?

    i'm wondering what the knowledgeable peeps here might recommend re: software for designing a fairly simple planetary system: sun, 4 planets, several moons.

    ideally i'd like something that could give info on tides and/or weather for the planets based on the moons they have, likely temps based on distance from the sun, etc.

    does such a thing exist?

    if not then how about something that can tell you about the tides and weather on a single planet based on it's moons?

    basically my situation is i have a planet, want it to have two moons, but have no clue how to find out what the tidal effects will be, etc.

    any guidance much appreciated.

    cheers,
    teef.

  2. #2
    Guild Expert Greason Wolfe's Avatar
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    A few possibilities here . . .

    Do a google search for the following

    1. StarGen (star system generator that gives lots of planetary information and has an online Beta for generating moons, but doesn't give any information about tidal effects)
    Link : http://eldacur.com/~brons/NerdCorner...n/StarGen.html

    2. Creating an Earthlike Planet (lots and lots of information here about creating planets around stars of various sizes, but, again, maybe not the amount of tidal information you're looking for)
    Link : http://www.compulink.co.uk/~morven/worldkit/index.html

    AstroSynthesis from NBOS software. I've got an older version that does enough for me, not sure what all the new version is capable of doing, but it should give you planetary surface temperatures and the like.
    Link : http://nbos.com/

    You could also look at ISDB (Internet Stellar Data Base). It has quite a bit of information about known stars in our galaxy and some good information regarding the existence of planets in binary systems and the like.
    Link : http://www.stellar-database.com/

    As far as the effects of one or more moons on tides and weather, you'll probably have to research that. I don't know of any software that handles that sort of thing, although, it may exist somewhere.

    GW
    Last edited by Greason Wolfe; 07-04-2009 at 06:21 PM. Reason: Adding Links
    GW

    One's worth is not measured by stature, alone. By heart and honor is One's true value weighed.

    Current Non-challenge WIP : Beyond Sosnasib
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  3. #3

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    many thanks! #2 was particularly useful and lead me to 'Geoff's Climate Cookbook' at http://www.compulink.co.uk/~morven/w...t/climate.html which i found most helpful for designing the climate based on issues like axial tilt and land mass sizes. great stuff!

    still nothing on working out the tidal effects of the two moons but no worries, i'm infinitely further ahead now than i was before.

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    Administrator Redrobes's Avatar
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    Theres been several threads about multi moon scenarios and whether they are stable, can the moons collide and tidal stuff. Depending on how accurate you need the data seems to give more and more complex techniques to get at it.

    http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=3654

    http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2243

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    I had started a program to do something like this, but eventually I fell behind on it. The goal had been to allow myself to accurately track positions and things like eclipses, etc.

    Eventually I settled for using a program Greason Wolfe pointed me to: Here

    After playing with this for awhile I got a number of moons that were fairly stable for several hundred years. (Slight wobble to their orbits.) I did this by using mostly light mass moons, the dense/heavy ones were stuck about the middle near where our actual moon is.

    So, after I had that working, I just cheated. I calculated the period of each moon alone around the planet. Then I wrote a little python script to calculate the positions of the moons around the planets at a given time. I only want to use the world for maybe a few hundred years, and these numbers come out as close enough.
    Last edited by Talroth; 07-06-2009 at 11:39 AM.

  6. #6
    Guild Expert Greason Wolfe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Talroth View Post
    I had started a program to do something like this, but eventually I fell behind on it. The goal had been to allow myself to accurately track positions and things like eclipses, etc.

    Eventually I settled for using a program Greason Wolfe pointed me to:

    After playing with this for awhile I got a number of moons that were fairly stable for several hundred years. (Slight wobble to their orbits.) I did this by using mostly light mass moons, the dense/heavy ones were stuck about the middle near where our actual moon is.

    So, after I had that working, I just cheated. I calculated the period of each moon alone around the planet. Then I wrote a little python script to calculate the positions of the moons around the planets at a given time. I only want to use the world for maybe a few hundred years, and these numbers come out as close enough.
    Oh man, thanks for reminding me about that. After tossing it out there, I completely forgot to go grab it for myself.

    GW

    Edit : Looks like the link got dropped out of Talroth's post, so here it is again, just for ease of finding.

    http://www.orbitsimulator.com/gravit...cles/what.html
    Last edited by Greason Wolfe; 07-05-2009 at 10:45 PM. Reason: Adding Link
    GW

    One's worth is not measured by stature, alone. By heart and honor is One's true value weighed.

    Current Non-challenge WIP : Beyond Sosnasib
    Current Lite Challenge WIP : None
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