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Ability to compute occultations #4120

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moble opened this issue Feb 4, 2025 · 2 comments
Open

Ability to compute occultations #4120

moble opened this issue Feb 4, 2025 · 2 comments
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enhancement Improve existing functionality subsystem: astrocalc The issue is related to AstroCalc subsystem of planetarium...

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@moble
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moble commented Feb 4, 2025

In discussing "observations of stellar occultations by planets or asteroids" there is a footnote in the guide that says

size.\footnote{Unfortunately Stellarium (as of v0.15.0) is not accurate
enough to reliably compute such occultations. Even a deviation of
0.5 arc-seconds is too much here.}

Version 0.15.0 is pretty old at this point, and other parts of the guide suggest that occultations can be computed. Is this footnote still valid?

@gzotti
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gzotti commented Feb 4, 2025

By algorithmic care Stellarium really has become much better since then. But TBH, we simply don't know. Take your telescope, find software that was developed for the topic, and please help us clarifying! A thorough test would be welcome. Of course you need to use up-to-date orbital elements of any minor bodies.

What has not been solved is the "disco-ball" geometry of the Moon which, although finely, is still tessellated, making the perimeter deviate from a perfect circle. Also effects of the Lunar edge profile are not modelled.

@alex-w alex-w added subsystem: astrocalc The issue is related to AstroCalc subsystem of planetarium... enhancement Improve existing functionality labels Feb 5, 2025
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github-actions bot commented Feb 5, 2025

Hello @moble!

Thank you for suggesting this enhancement.

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Labels
enhancement Improve existing functionality subsystem: astrocalc The issue is related to AstroCalc subsystem of planetarium...
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