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Dec 16, 1999, 7:30pm

If you're an astronomy buff or a would-be star voyager, check out the
new displays of the brightest stars within 1000 parsecs of the Sun, on
COFMeta at 888s 888w. It's educational (each star has its name on it &
its position was derived from the new Hipparcos Probe data). It shows
yet another way a BuilderBot can be used. And it's just plain fun
sailing through the darkness of space with stars flying by.

Dec 23, 1999, 4:47pm

> If you're an astronomy buff or a would-be star voyager, check out the
> new displays of the brightest stars within 1000 parsecs of the Sun, on
> COFMeta at 888s 888w.

I can second that! What a neat idea!! next step would be to give each star
it's correct spectral colour.

> It's educational (each star has its name on it &
> its position was derived from the new Hipparcos Probe data).

The catalogue also has absolute brightness data, i guess it should be
possible to include that too.

> It shows yet another way a BuilderBot can be used.

Yes indeed.

Is there a solar system tucked away somewhere?

> And it's just plain fun
> sailing through the darkness of space with stars flying by

yep.

Dec 23, 1999, 9:12pm

Thanks, Lexxus. Actually, the stars are graded by Absolute Magnitude,
so that in the 1000-parsec display, -8 & below AbsMag (the brightest)
are the biggest, -7 & -6 are next biggest, -5 are merely big, -4 are
small, -3 are smaller yet, and -2 are the smallest. In the 100-parsec
display, -5 & below are the biggest, -4 & -3 are next biggest, -2 & -1
are merely big, 0 AbsMag stars are small, +1 & +2 are smaller yet, stars
+3 & above are the smallest (the last class includes the Sun).
I used the 3 Blink textures to make the Blink & Helper1 objects seem
to be different sizes (or intensities), as well to look round from all
sides.
If the stars could be in color, that'd be way cool, yes! (I couldn't
think of a way to do both the textures and the colors, but I sure would
like to know of one.)

[View Quote]

Dec 25, 1999, 12:08am

Canopus recently typed:

> ... Actually, the stars are graded by Absolute Magnitude,
> so that in the 1000-parsec display, -8 & below AbsMag (the brightest)
> are the biggest, -7 & -6 are next biggest, -5 are merely big,

is there anyway to change the intensity of a star object directly? it would be
better to have physical size directly in correspondence as well.

> If the stars could be in color, that'd be way cool, yes! (I couldn't
> think of a way to do both the textures and the colors, but I sure would
> like to know of one.)

surely someone knows ...

another suggestion: can you remove or replace the background with a void? it
would give a less confusing reference frame.

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