Monday, August 29, 2011

coached Kevin in Stellarium

Kevin raised some questions about his Stellarium 0.10.6.1.

Q: Cannot find any place to enable labelling of comets or anything like "motion trails."

A: Stellarium classifies the comets as planets. So, turn on the planet labels and you'll see the comets. Bear in mind you'll need to zoom in...

Q: I was able to do a search for Garradd and it shows the highlighting, red, pulsing lines, but otherwise it is not labelled and there are no trails.

A: Right, so zoom in. Stellarium also shows it as a point source. So you won't see a fuzzy shape or a comet tail. Depending on the comet, the magnitude could be 10 or 12 or 14. So you'll need to zoom in a lot! Planet, asteroid, and comet trails are enabled in Stellarium by pressing Shift-T. Then speed up time or advanced to the next day or week.

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