The Solar System: September, AD 15605

[töff]

Thanks ... um, me too ...

Another temptation I hope not to give in to is the use of photos for the planets. I want to do new stylized representations for them, maybe something kinda isometric ... OK, it's stupid to try to represent a sphere isometrically ... but you know, at a jaunty angle with some shading. Dunno what this will do to my color palette.

I also want to make new icons for the zodiac. it would be too easy to steal a set.

I want I want I want! I sound like my 2.5yr-old nephew!

[töff]

Oh, I know how to solve the "too many moons" problem! If this map is an interactive piece of animated-ink software, I can just have a variable-quantity moon display. Then the thing just defaults to the first, oh, say, 4-5 moons, or it has a basic starting setting for each planet, and then a little popup menu so the user can hide the moons, show all, show inhabited, show #?, select by name, etc.

This will be more of a screenshot kinda thing, than a paper map.

The project just took on a whole new dimension.

[töff]

Ooh, and I get to do the trojans, too. At the very least, Jupiter's L4 and L5, but maybe others. Neptune and even Mars have trojans. That'll help fill out the circles!

[Midgardsormr]

OK, it's stupid to try to represent a sphere isometrically ... but you know, at a jaunty angle with some shading.

If you can pull that off, I'll be . . . suitably impressed.

[töff]

I always wanted to make an orrery in 3D. I have some cool ideas for a 3D piece for this map ... but I think I better stick with something I can accomplish in under 500 hours.

[töff]

I have ecliptic longitudes (and latitudes!) for all the planets incl. Sedna, Eris, Pluto and the top dozen or so asteroids incl. Ceres.

I was able to set Starry Night to view from "sun center" and set the date to 15605-09-15-1200.

The info is overkill ... Here's Earth ...

Looking:	south west (223 degrees from North)
:	44 degrees from horizon
Field of View:	100 degrees (width)
:	92 degrees (height)
Limiting Magnitude:	0.4
Observing Conditions:	Clear Sky Clock Online...
Universal Time:	9/15/15605 12:10:15
Local Time:	9/15/15605 12:10:15
Julian Day:	7420927.00712
Sidereal Time:	15h 57m 24.6s
Delta T:	567158.2 seconds
Location:	Sun centre
Latitude:	0°  N
Longitude:	0°  E
Heliocentric X:	0 meters
Y:	0 meters
Z:	-0 meters
Distance from Sun:	0 meters
Angle from Ecliptic Plane:	-55.749 arcminutes
Phi:	86.580 degrees

Name:	Earth
Object type:	Planet
Rises:	9/3/15605 at 01:14:13
Transit:	9/9/15605 at 20:51:30
Sets:	9/16/15605 at 16:22:16
Constellation name:	Virgo
Constellation common name:	The Maiden
Constellation possessive form:	Virginis
Azimuth:	263° 16.312'
Altitude:	15° 24.993'
Hour Angle (JNow):	-8h 46m 57.6s
Elongation:	105° East
RA (JNow):	0h 44.373m
Dec (JNow):	4° 36.109'
RA (J2000):	11h 58.863m
Dec (J2000):	0° 44.030'
Ecliptic longitude:	11° 59.917'
Ecliptic latitude:	-0° 0.000'
Galactic longitude:	275° 12.321'
Galactic latitude:	60° 44.611'
Distance from observer:	1.0077 au
Distance from Sun:	1.0077 au
Radius:	6378 km
Apparent magnitude:	-3.82
Orbit size:	1.0000 au
Angular size:	17 arcseconds
Disk illumination:	100%
Planet oblateness:	0.00
Mass:	5.97e+24 Kilograms
Max magnitude from Earth:	0.00
Length of sidereal day:	23.9345 hours
Length of solar day:	24.0000 hours
Length of year:	365.24 days
Description:	Earth, our home planet is the only planet known to harbour life and from fossil evidence has done so for 3.5 billion years of its 4.5 billion year life span. The surface of Earth is constantly being remade by atmospheric and tectonic processes, so unlike the Moon and other solar system bodies, the Earth is not marked by craters. Over seventy percent of Earth‘s surface is covered by water. The atmosphere of Earth is 77% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. Until the Apollo program in the late 1960‘s, we had never seen a view of Earth from the outside. The Apollo pictures reveal what a fragile and wonderful world we live on, a spark of life in the barren emptiness of space.
Heliocentric X:	0.98568 au
Y:	0.20949 au
Z:	-14 km

I think all I really need is this part ...

Ecliptic longitude:	11° 59.917'
Ecliptic latitude:	-0° 0.000'

Of course Earth's ecliptic latitude is 0. Earth orbit defines the ecliptic.

But, this being a flat map, I dunno if I will even include altitude above or below the ecliptic plane. Maybe as extra info. Maybe not.

[töff]

It's time to start laying out my workspace. I can print up to 11x17, and trim down to 10.5x16.5 with a bleed. But I have to count how many circles to fit into that space ... and I found this awesome pic ...

[RPMiller]

Whoa... that is slick, informative, and useful all at the same time. Very nice find!

[töff]

Also, I had an idea. The circles to not need to be centered in the space. I can offset the whole thing, and crop down to the necessary elements, like the pic below shows all it needs to show, but the sun ain't nowhere near center. I think this will give the piece a nice touch ... a jaunty angle ... but it costs me some of the "celestial spheres" flavor ... oh well ... trade-offs ... I hope the celestial sphere flavor will be more in the graphic style rather than orbits centered on the page. Offsetting and cropping will allow me to cram more content into the space I have, because I won't be wasting space on empty stretches of orbit.

Of course, to do this, I have to plot out the circles first, and get all the elements in place ... well, the outermost ones, anyway. Obviously the inner planets won't affect this cropping idea.

[töff]

Whoa... that is slick, informative, and useful all at the same time. Very nice find!

Yeh, I thought the heliosphere was a lot further out ... and the Oort cloud closer in. I just realized I bollocksed something in a previous chapter ... a guy out in the Oort Cloud received a message from Earth that would have taken many months to get there. Maybe I can come up with a clever explanation. We'll see.

Anyway, did you notice the logarithmic scale there?