Solar System Model?

[Kulindahr]

I just spent over an hour using google, trying to find a solar system model such that I can put in a future date, like 10 May 2072 or something, and see where all the planets and such will be.

I can't believe there's no such thing out there; it's got to be that I'm not doing a very good search. Can anyone help?

 

[looseliam]

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/

it only goes up to 2025, though. I'm sure you might be able to download the HTML and pass your own arguments to the script.

 

[Kulindahr]

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/

it only goes up to 2025, though. I'm sure you might be able to download the HTML and pass your own arguments to the script.

All I get is an error page that tells me "Internal Server Error".

 

[naquedon]

Stellarium is a very good and free program available from http://www.stellarium.org there is a 'Date & Time' window where you can enter any specific date and see where all the planets and constellations will be. As far as I know there is no limit on how far into the past or future you go but I'd imagine that the further you go the more 'off' it will be.

Hope that helps

 

[Kulindahr]

Stellarium is a very good and free program available from http://www.stellarium.org there is a 'Date & Time' window where you can enter any specific date and see where all the planets and constellations will be. As far as I know there is no limit on how far into the past or future you go but I'd imagine that the further you go the more 'off' it will be.

Hope that helps

Neat.

But I don't need a view from Earth, I need a map that shows their orbits and positions in those orbits.

 

[naquedon]

Ah, I see what you mean, you can edit the settings in Stellarium to achieve this by setting your location as 'Solar system observer' and then switch off the atmosphere and ground effects and enable 'Show planet orbits' in the sky and viewing options. Then just play about with the view and zoom to get a perfect view.

There is another program out there that simulates views from any planet/star or point in space that perhaps gives better results but I can't for the life in me remember what it's called. I'll keep thinking and get back to you on that

 

[Kulindahr]

Uh-oh.

I downloaded it, and it froze my computer.

Does it need to connect to the internet to run?

 

[naquedon]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't need a connection. Did you check the requirements:

• Linux/Unix; Windows 2000/NT/XP/Vista; MacOS X 10.3.x or greater.
• A 3D graphics card with a support for OpenGL.
• A dark room for realistic rendering - details like the Milky Way or star twinkling
can’t be seen in a bright room.
• Minimum of 256 MiB RAM, 1 GiB or more required for the largest star catalogue

I use Windows 7 and it works just fine for me.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't need a connection. Did you check the requirements:

• Linux/Unix; Windows 2000/NT/XP/Vista; MacOS X 10.3.x or greater.
• A 3D graphics card with a support for OpenGL.
• A dark room for realistic rendering - details like the Milky Way or star twinkling
can’t be seen in a bright room.
• Minimum of 256 MiB RAM, 1 GiB or more required for the largest star catalogue

I use Windows 7 and it works just fine for me.

I'm confident of everything except the graphics card, which I confess I can't figure out how to check out.

I'm running Windows 7 on a 64-bit system.

 

[looseliam]

All I get is an error page that tells me "Internal Server Error".

Works fine on my end. Here's an example of what you see:

You can change your POV to whatever you'd like. It's kinda neat, actually.

 

[Kulindahr]

Works fine on my end. Here's an example of what you see:

You can change your POV to whatever you'd like. It's kinda neat, actually.

I'd want to be above the ecliptic in the inner solar system so I can get relative distances at a glance. The story I'm writing won't care about anything beyond the asteroids for a while yet.

I'm going to reboot and try again -- my default approach with Windows.

 

[Kulindahr]

Ah, I see what you mean, you can edit the settings in Stellarium to achieve this by setting your location as 'Solar system observer' and then switch off the atmosphere and ground effects and enable 'Show planet orbits' in the sky and viewing options. Then just play about with the view and zoom to get a perfect view.

There is another program out there that simulates views from any planet/star or point in space that perhaps gives better results but I can't for the life in me remember what it's called. I'll keep thinking and get back to you on that

I don't see any way to set my location to that. It has me in Paris seemingly no matter what I do.

Is there a manual for this thing? I'm having to learn the symbols along the bottom by trial and error, because there aren't any labels, just scattered letters. The "Help" isn't much help, and most of the control panels I can access on the left of the screen have letters do faint I can't read half of it.

Maybe I'll try downloading again.

 

[naquedon]

I'd want to be above the ecliptic in the inner solar system so I can get relative distances at a glance. The story I'm writing won't care about anything beyond the asteroids for a while yet.

You can achieve almost any view just by playing around with the settings. In the attached image I have ground and atmosphere off, planet orbits on and my planet set as solar system observer. I then found the Sun and zoomed and panned to get the view I did.

If you're still struggling, perhaps you could give me the date & time in question and I'll take a screen cap for you?

 

[Kulindahr]

You can achieve almost any view just by playing around with the settings. In the attached image I have ground and atmosphere off, planet orbits on and my planet set as solar system observer. I then found the Sun and zoomed and panned to get the view I did.

If you're still struggling, perhaps you could give me the date & time in question and I'll take a screen cap for you?

I finally found "Solar System Observer" by sheer trial and error -- there's no labels on anything, no planet names in a list. And with no instructions or explanations of what any of the controls are, I keep getting into dead ends and having to quite and start over. That's why I asked if there's a manual.

I feel like I'm trying to learn to fly when none of the controls or instruments are labeled.