Sunday, April 04, 2021

recreated the search problem

Chris V explained this to me a little while ago but I was unclear.

He even sent an example, which I tried, but I did not get errors or problems. 

But today, it happened!

In Stellarium (the latest version 0.21.0 no less), I was searching for something. A rather common double star. 54 Leonis.

I noticed that if I typed "54 leo" (without the quotes of course), if I typed it fully and quickly, I saw * 54 Leo (with an asterisk) in the search results list. And when I hit Enter or selected the item, I went to an unknown star! Scant details in the object information display. Weird.

So I tried again. But I typed very slowly, pausing between each character. I typed 54, space, then "l" (lower-case L) and paused. The search results listing showed two items!

54 Leo

* 54 Leo

When I chose the first suggestion, without the asterisk, I got normal stuff! I was clearly on correct star and lots of normal data showed in the information list. Very weird.

I shared my findings with Chris. "Yes. That's what I've been talking about."

Previously Chris said it didn't matter what the SIMBAD option was in the Search window...

Neither of us understand what's happening but there's some sort of glitch in the Search window. The items marked with an asterisk appear to be things not found in a catalogue. But somehow the location is right.

Or so it seems.

I noticed when I zoomed in tight, to a very high level, the * 54 Leo marker was not on the star. It was a bit off. It seems to be tied to a location but not an actual object in a catalogue.

This creates a caution for users. When searching, certainly for common stuff, avoiding selecting items with an asterisk.

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