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Topic: Anyone here into Astronomy ? (Read 5008 times)
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Volka
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I love astronomy.In fact,one of the reasons why I like that much uqm is because astronomy. I like that kind of stuff.
You can ask me almost anything about planets,stars,constellations or the anti-matter theory and I'd be able to respond correctly.
Unfortunately,I don't have any telescope. My father wanted to buy one time ago...but they're expensive here. I can only count on my binoculars...heck,but here nights are pretty cold and it is often clouded.
Besides,the lights of the city don't let you appreciate the stars totally. Too bad.
I also own a house in Alpha Centauri,but I'm pretty sure it is far away from ours heh 
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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RA 12h 08m 24.7s
DEC -24° 23' 44"
visual magnitude 4.02
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Nic.
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As anyone who has seen the hyperspace map that originally shipped with the game could tell you:
"This map details the spatial relationship between the stars in our known region of the galaxy, as well as the spheres of influence for each alien race as of AD 2133. The positions are based on HyperSpace coordinates, which may be unsettling to some students of TrueSpace astronomy. Defined long ago by Chenjesu stargazers, the constellations are now accepted by all Alliance races as the standard. Due to the great difficulty in pronouncing the Chenjesu language, each race has translated the names into their own tongue. When it came time for Earth to adopt this system, the United Nations decided to use traditional astrological designations, assigned at random. This has caused some confusion, but it is considered preferable to the suggested alternative: using the names of past politicians."
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« Last Edit: December 12, 2003, 06:38:06 pm by Nic. »
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Volka
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*coughs*
Actually...I was exaggerating my knowledge,you know
Quote:I have a question then... Are the positions and names of the stars in star control based in reality or arbitrary?
I've wondered this question too. Most of the constellations' names are there... the constellations don't really look like the real constellations. That's okay, we can't expect to find all the stars of the constellations.
Perhaps there are some invented stars...
However, what about Pluto's moon? And where are the Uranus' moon?
Okay,I know the game is a little old,but not that old. I mean,in early 90's we already knew about Pluto's moon, although we knew very little about it indeed. Perhaps because of this,or because they creators of the game didn't want so, Pluto's moon is missing.
half reality,half fiction,probably.
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Sage
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Isn't it funny that Alpha Centauri is so far away from Sol, when in Truespace it's only 4 light years away? And yet Rigel is right next to Sol in Hyperspace.
My theory about this has always been that the Hyperspace map is basically just a view of the stars from a certain angle. Though obviously there's no way to tell what angle/distance it's viewed from, it would at least explain the Alpha Centauri problem.
For all we know, Rigel might be incredibly "above" or "below" Sol in Truespace (not using Orzspeak here, I'm referring to a z axis), but when viewed from the angle Hyperspace is based on they'd be incredibly close together.
Alpha Centauri might not be as far "above" or "below" Sol in Truespace, so the distance on the hyperspace map might be more representative of four light years after all. It just wouldn't apply too well for a universal calculation without z coordinates in Hyperspace, which seem to have been established as nonexistant.
EDIT: Of course, now that I read more closely, if the constellation names were assigned at random, then there's no real way to say for sure if Hyperspace's Alpha Centauri is the same as Truespace's Alpha Centauri. So this whole theory might be moot. Ah well.
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« Last Edit: December 12, 2003, 06:27:57 am by sageallen »
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Novus
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Fot or not?
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The starmap supplied with SC2 explicitly states that the constellations are not the traditional Earthling "group together stars that are in the same direction from Earth" constellations. Instead, Chenjesu-style grouping based on actual position (or HyperSpace position) is used. This means that Alpha Centauri in SC2 may or may not be the Alpha Centauri we known (probably not) and so on.
For convenience, traditional Human constellation names (and a few extra ones named after famous astronomers and scientists) are used on Alliance maps intended for Human use; the confusion with the old system is considered acceptable compared to the alternative of naming all the stars after ancient Earth politicians (e.g. Beta Bush, Alpha Lincoln).
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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The stars are not the same at all. In particular, we know this because Alpha centauri is very similar to our sun in real life, while in the game it is a [edit:] RED supergiant.
Also, many many moons are missing from the solar system in the game. This is probably for balance, as having all 40 or so missing moons would make in-system mining way too profitable or way too boring.
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« Last Edit: December 14, 2003, 11:50:09 pm by Death_999 »
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Volka
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In fact,Alpha Centauri is a three-sun system( a typical binary system,that is to say,two starts orbiting each other, plus a third one that orbits the binary stars) I can't even imagine that level of complexity in uqm heh
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lycaon
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Hi,
To your question ''Anyone here into Astronomy'', I answer you yes (in fact, I’m doing my 'master' in Montréal University).
I fist play Star Control II in about 1994 and then... last week... I found this web site ! Of curse, I download the game and, even if I have some exam to prepare, I wasn't able to resist !
Any way, at the time I was playing this game for the first time, I didn't expect to go in astronomy.
Today, of curse, when I play this game, I found bizarre thing (like traveling more quickly than light and planet having more the 3000 degrees !!!) but it doesn’t matter.
It think this is the best science fiction game and I was very glad to see that Star Control 2 was now a ''open source'' game.
Have a nice travel in 'Hyper Space' !
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Michael Martin
Core Team
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I find it amusing that "Sirius" is right next to Sol in HyperSpace, and that the Greys/Sectoids/Ariloulaleelay have generally been considered in the UFO mythology to either be from Sirius or to be using it as a staging area.
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Pages: [1] 2
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).