t00fri wrote:
CC,
if you have a big, nicely calibrated monitor, then...have a look in the dark:
[click on images by all means and then on the fullscreen button of your browser (FF => F11)]Just the Milky Way with 2 million (non-GAIA foreground stars). They are available at Motherlode (Grant Hutchison et al.,
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/creat ... _1.4.0.zip) and involve assumptions about spectral properties etc. The MilkyWay is the famous one by
Nick Risinger sitting on a transparent sphere with the Sun in the center. The MW has the highest resolution he has granted us free of charge
and is very accurate )The 2M stars are numberwise in the same ball park as what we can expect from GAIA in the near future!
Fridger,
I have had Grant's 2M stars for many years now, however you may have perhaps misunderstood the observation I was making ...
... which is that views from within the galaxy (at least anywhere near Sol) are one thing. however views from outside the galaxy are another thing altogether.
Even with the 2 million stars addon, we only have actual stars represented in a rough sphere surrounding Sol. The reasons for this are obvious (I'm sure I don't have to explain to you
), but the net result is that with Galaxy rendering enabled (and Mag Limit WAY up), we see this:
Attachment:
Milky Way Galaxy.jpg [ 127.73 KiB | Viewed 1156 times ]
however with Galaxy Rendering disabled we only see this small sphere of stars (lower left) surrounding SOL:
Attachment:
Milky Way Stars.jpg [ 39.15 KiB | Viewed 1156 times ]
I was hoping that the GAIA release would give a more complete rendering of actual star distribution in the other arms and further reaches of the galaxy, not just in our vicinity, which might go some way towards a realistic rendering of the structure of the galaxy using the actual distribution of stars, rather than a constructed sprite, however perhaps this is just wishful thinking.
CC
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