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31 Dec 2018 20:50

lol how did they employ artificial gravity?  You can scientifically simulate artificial gravity using the centrifugal force (lots of similarities between gravity and the centrifugal force,
No, they don't use centrifugal force or any other alternative methods of generating a downward force on an astronaut based on actual science. Last time I checked, it's the tried and true 'gravity plates' in the floors or some such handwave.  The ships are very much like those in Elite: Dangerous or Star Wars. That is a pity, because it would add a new layer of immersion to the game if centrifugal-ring designs were present, along with non-humanoid aliens. Star Citizen is good, but not hard sci-fi  like the multiplayer/singleplayer SE might be. 

But do remember that centrifugal force and gravity are not that similar and if you were in a orbiting ring, you would instantly notice the difference.
Mr. Abner wrote:
FYI and this might be OT but oh well do any of these simulations model stellar proper motion? I need something that does that and cant wait for SE to implement it.  SNPP does already and I like going backwards in time and seeing that Thuban in Draco was the North Star during the building of the pyramids or in the distant future when we will have our brightest North Star which will be Vega in Lyra.
Is this modelling actual stellar movement? Or just the precession of the Earth's axis?
It's a mix of both, but moreso the percussion. The movement of stars, especially those farther away due to parallax, take a VERY long time to orbit the galaxy (well, they don't exactly 'orbit', but rather rotate with the galaxy) and change the nightsky in a noticeable way. Millennia would need to pass in order for the closest stars and those with very high velocity relative to the galaxy to move visibly in the sky. For those reasons, the detail of star motion (whether percussionary, orbital or galactically rotational) is an arbitrary one with limited application in video games beyond pure simulations or those strategic games that have long timelines. SE is an except, because it'll be a mix of both. I wouldn't be surprised if some astronomic features will be disabled for convenience in the game part of SE. 
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01 Jan 2019 03:59

Yes, and I wonder if they would be able to properly model the differences if they did even use centrifugal force as a proxy!  

One of my favorite stars I wanted to model for proper motion was Barnard's Star because it moves relatively quickly (and is close to us) even moreso now that we found it has a planet(s).  I think Barnard's Star will become our closest neighbor in a few thousand years?  Also sometimes there is a sense of zen just sitting on Earth and trying to see what the ancients saw in the skies thousands of years ago or what people will see thousands of years in the future.  One thing I would like to see simulated one day (though I imagine this will be difficult) would be historic supernova explosions.  Not just the Crab Nebula, but the one that formed the Veil Nebula and the one in Lupus and others.  Also there has been some speculation about the ancients having seen the explosion that formed the white dwarf Sirius B, that must have been spectacular, especially considering the distance.  And back in the 19th century there was actually a supernova in the Andromeda galaxy which must have been amazing for how far away it was because the star almost attained naked eye visibility!  And if you really want to be adventurous you could predict when future supernova explosions will occur (some really spectacular ones would be Eta Carinae and Betelgeuse and S Doradus and maybe even R136a1- even though it's in the LMC- it's the most massive star we know by a wide margin. That might actually end up becoming a hypernova!)

If you really want to be speculative (but still stay scientific) you could model the sun's motion through the galaxy for millions of years and pinpoint when we will be close enough to other stars for them to nudge the Oort Comet Cloud and cause the next natural periodic mass extinction........or even maybe model the one from 65 million years ago (and possibly others)!
 
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01 Jan 2019 05:11

A-L-E-X wrote:
As it currently is, does SE properly show what star patterns will look like from exoplanets orbiting known stars?  But doesn't yet account for stellar proper motion or precession does it?
SE calculates the exact position of every known (and procedural) star in our galaxy relative to the player position. So yes, exoconstellations are 'accurate' insofar as our knowledge of star position in the Milky Way extends. A lot of the star positions of KNOWN, CATALOGED stars in SE at 3D coordinates are based on our current rough estimates with trigonometric parallax for nearby stars and other techniques like the "Standard Candle" (which are key to the Cosmic distance latter) for astronomical objects farther out. The recent survey of the GAIA spacecraft have greatly helped our exact understanding of the star positions though, and this new catalog will be slowly implemented. There is a very neat tool showcasing GAIA data HERE.

As for galactic rotation effect on stars, no feature is yet implemented and it may be a while yet before it is for technical reasons (gaps in the data, for example).
Also sometimes there is a sense of zen just sitting on Earth and trying to see what the ancients saw in the skies thousands of years ago or what people will see thousands of years in the future.
Fun fact: the dinosaurs did not look up and see the stars we do today. 65 million years ago the sky was unrecognizable. The Pleiades and most other star clusters were not present, and even the moon was a little larger! This was due to the fact that since it's inception the moon has been orbiting away from us at a rate of 1 inch (3 cm) per year. 

Image
If you really want to be speculative (but still stay scientific)...
Probably the coolest thing to witness as an astronomer would be a galactic collision - like the inevitable one between the Milky Way and Andromeda 5 billion years from now (ironically the same time the sun goes red giant).
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02 Jan 2019 02:12

Yesss, I wish we could model that far out :(  SNPP can do back or forwards 1 million years so you can see neat things like the shape of the Big Dipper changing as the stars move in their own directions.  1 million years ago was also around the dawn of the human species so that's pretty interesting.  No modeling of historic supernovae of course but seeing ancient conjunctions of planets is pretty neat too.  I do hope well before that galactic collision/merger happens our species will be well out into space and exploring (both) galaxies by then!

I have the 5 million version of the GAIA catalog installed, it's very neat, especially when I go to a procedural planet inside a star cluster, where the GAIA stars are brighter, the sky seems to be littered with them!  It does remind me a bit of what Asimov imagined in Nightfall!  I heard GAIA will catalog millions of exoplanets and quasars also!

Something I find highly interesting in SE is when I see an earthlike planet with a set of prominent rings around it.  In the future the moon will get close enough to get smashed to bits and form a similar set of rings I think?  In the movie The Time Machine (loosely based on HG Wells' excellent book) the sky actually has a smashed moon in the sky and the beginnings of a set of rings is forming!
 
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02 Jan 2019 03:02

I do hope well before that galactic collision/merger happens our species will be well out into space and exploring (both) galaxies by then!
Even if we were not, nothing bad would happen during a galactic collision - the stars are too far apart in both galaxies to collide or really interact with one another (aside from maybe the core regions). But yes, I really hope we'll have done something in 5 billion years - though I have the funny feeling that we won't be around then, at least not as ourselves.
In the future the moon will get close enough to get smashed to bits and form a similar set of rings I think?  In the movie The Time Machine (loosely based on HG Wells' excellent book) the sky actually has a smashed moon in the sky and the beginnings of a set of rings is forming!
Such rings are usually short-lived, lasting only a few million years or so depending on the average size of the dust granules in the ring structure. It would be pretty neat though. I wonder how much a ring around a inhabited planet would effect a space program?
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02 Jan 2019 03:11

I do hope well before that galactic collision/merger happens our species will be well out into space and exploring (both) galaxies by then!
Even if we were not, nothing bad would happen during a galactic collision - the stars are too far apart in both galaxies to collide or really interact with one another (aside from maybe the core regions). But yes, I really hope we'll have done something in 5 billion years - though I have the funny feeling that we won't be around then, at least not as ourselves.
In the future the moon will get close enough to get smashed to bits and form a similar set of rings I think?  In the movie The Time Machine (loosely based on HG Wells' excellent book) the sky actually has a smashed moon in the sky and the beginnings of a set of rings is forming!
Such rings are usually short-lived, lasting only a few million years or so depending on the average size of the dust granules in the ring structure. It would be pretty neat though. I wonder how much a ring around a inhabited planet would effect a space program?
Yes probably a new species we evolve into or perhaps we will have some sort of human/robot merger to create bodies that are indestructible?  I kind of want to see the two supermassive black holes merging in the galaxies and see what that would result in.
Thats interesting about how it might affect a space program and the civilization itself.  Though the views would be great, in The Time Machine, there were chunks of moon rocks falling down from time to time!  How long have Saturn's rings lasted?
 
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02 Jan 2019 04:23

Yes probably a new species we evolve into or perhaps we will have some sort of human/robot merger to create bodies that are indestructible?  I kind of want to see the two supermassive black holes merging in the galaxies and see what that would result in.

Thats interesting about how it might affect a space program and the civilization itself.  Though the views would be great, in The Time Machine, there were chunks of moon rocks falling down from time to time!  How long have Saturn's rings lasted?
I moved my reply to the Totally off topic thread A-L-E-X.
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02 Jan 2019 22:17

I heard GAIA will catalog millions of exoplanets
Not millions but quite a few.
~ 10,000 out to 500pc (1600 ly) from astrometry (which is awesome since we only have discovered a handful of planets using this method to date)
~300-3000 from transit photometry (mostly hot and very hot Jupiters)

More here: http://sci.esa.int/gaia/58784-exoplanets/
Something I find highly interesting in SE is when I see an earthlike planet with a set of prominent rings around it.  In the future the moon will get close enough to get smashed to bits and form a similar set of rings I think? 
Actually you've got it reversed, the Moon is actually moving away from us. But... it is thought that at one time in Earth's distant past we had a ring after the collision with a Mars sized planet we call Theia. That ring became our Moon.
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03 Jan 2019 06:16

Wow that's interesting!  If the moon is moving away wouldn't that mean that eventually it will not be in the grip of Earth's gravity and eventually be on its own?

And thanks for reminding me, we have a total lunar eclipse (at perigee!) coming up on January 20th.  It'll be a shallow eclipse (totality only lasting an hour or so) because the Moon is going to pass in the northern part of the Earth's shadow.  I like capturing these near totality when you get the ruddy hue and you can see stars very close to the moon (little to no glare).

About detecting exoplanets I had read that can be done with DSLR and astronomical CCD cameras also, depending upon the equipment used.  I have a mono CCD camera (no Bayer CFA) that I want to use for this purpose.

Interesting NASA interview yesterday morning talking about Cassini finding out that Saturn's inner ring is raining down on the planet and will be completely gone in about 100 million years.  And that he expects some extraterrestrial biosignatures for life either outside or inside our solar system to be found within about 20 years.  IF those signatures were found in our solar system (on Europa for example, or Mars), that would dramatically increase the chances of life elsewhere too (even if its only microbial life, which is what it would probably end up being)- having any kind of life on TWO separate bodies in our solar system would significantly modify the Drake equation (unless of course those two bodies had a common source for life.)

Also, Happy New Year! It's gotten off to a fast start! :-)
 
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17 Jan 2019 04:23

[quote="rogerflash"]Hi, guys.
Did not want to create a new thread, probably you can help me here.

I want to save a gameplay video of Space Engine, which is on Twitter


Do you know how to do that?[/quote]

Use this Twitter video downloader https://www.mp3converter.net/twitter-video-downloader
 
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22 Jan 2019 01:17

[youtube]1Dv9RRrW0UI[/youtube]
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

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22 Jan 2019 03:11

A video I made of one of my fav old games NFS 5 aka Porsche 2000.

driving the 935 in manual trans mode as I always do.  Great game as it was one of the first to try simulate real car physics which set it apart from all the other NFS games.  Driving these rear heavy cars is like balancing a plate on a broom which is very accurate given how older Porsche typically handle.

[youtube]OGtgj0t-Eh8[/youtube]
 
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24 Jan 2019 07:46

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23 Feb 2019 09:21

I think normal games with BP technology will not be released soon. Now we see only simulators
 
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23 Feb 2019 10:47

Quick question: do you guys still play NMS? :)
yes
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