used the smartphone

Did a review of making a custom landscape for Stellarium. I wanted to prove the process that a panoramic image from a phone or tablet could be turned into a background texture in the software. I expected it to work but I had never done it. In fact, I jumped up in the middle of the afternoon, popped out back, and shot a panorama with the motorola e6 smartphone and built-in camera app. Perfect uniform grey sky for the task at hand.

The image looked good when done and was an odd dimension of course, 9400 pixels by 1700 pixels, approximately. It took me a few tries but I got it work. With GIMP, I produced a 4096x2048 PNG with transparency. Hacked the INI file. It all worked. 

So a good review in the end as I had forgotten a few of the particulars. Touched up my notes in the Advanced Stellarium Quick Reference Card. Prepped sample files for training. Proof of concept met. And I'm better prepared now for my upcoming level 3 training rehearsal with the Stellarium team!