Version: (using KDE KDE 3.1.94) Installed from: SuSE RPMs OS: Linux some constellations seen from the southern hemisphere are incorrect (e.g. centaurus: alpha1 centauri, beta centauri etc. should be in it) or missing (e.g. carina) also the german translation of vela is incorrect: puppis --> "Heck des Schiffes" (correct) carina --> "Kiel des Schiffes" (correct) vela --> "Segel des Schiffes" (currently only "Segel") furthermore i have found zeta1 orionis to be unnamed, its name is "Alnitak" i think thanks, keep up the great work! :)
Alnitak isn't named, it's true. As for Alpha and Beta Centauri, they are there, even if they aren't connected by the lines in the Centaurus (the two bright stars following the small arm of the Crux) And as for the German translation, I suggest a note to i18n-de.
>As for Alpha and Beta Centauri, they are there, even if they aren't connected by the lines in the Centaurus sorry i expressed it wrong, i meant the lines that form the centaurus constellation should include alpha and beta centauri. i found a book in which the lines of centaurus were drawn between different stars than in kstars, for example theta centauri is connected with 3 other stars, or alpha and beta centauri are connected with epsilon centauri. > And as for the German translation, I suggest a note to i18n-de good idea ;-)
some things i have noticed in a well-known region of the northern sky: taurus: the "cornets of the bull" are not drawn as seen in the picture at this page: http://www.sternenhimmel-aktuell.de/SBStier.htm (two of the left-out stars are named as belonging to taurus in kstars, the third is not assigned to any constellation) orion: this picture of orion http://www.sternenhimmel-aktuell.de/Orion.htm shows the names of two stars of orion that are not named in kstars: Heka (the head of orion) and Alnitak (belongs to the belt, see initial report) some notes: - for alpha orionis, Betelgeuse as well as Beteigeuze are appropriate, at lease in the german language, nothing to worry about :) - epsilon orionis is labeled Alniam in the picture, however i have seen other (english and german) pictures that name it Alnilam as kstars does. i think it's a general issue that different sources use slightly different a) names (e.g. Wega - Vega, Arcturus - Arkturus, Rigel Kentaurus - Rigil Kentaurus, Kocab - Kochab, ...extend at will... and i'm not talking about sources in different languages here) and b) constellations (the lines are drawn between different stars in different pictures), e.g. kstars does not have the "cornets of the bull" but therefore in the above linked picture the line between the bull's head and the pleiades is missing. or take the pi[n] orionis stars: some say it's a shield, some say it's a bow, some draw it the way kstars does (well, most i have seen actually), and some do it the way as seen in the picture . . . which finally leads to my question: is there a general scheme that specifies between which stars of a constellation lines have to be drawn so that a picture matches with the persons/animals from the myths most constellations are based on?
As far as I know, there is no "official" source for constellation lines. There is an official source for constellation *boundaries*, which I plan to include after 3.2 is released. I think that the lines used by KStars are fine, but if you are interested in redoing them, we should just find a widely-used star chart and adopt its constellation lines. I suggest Uranometria or SkyChart 2000 by Wil Tirion. One shortcoming of the current kstars lines: they are defined by coordinates on the sky, rather than being attached to stars. You can sometimes see where the constellation lines don't quite match the star position. Also, once we add stellar proper motions, this means that the mismatch between constellation lines and stars will be much worse for remote dates. So, I'd like the new clines.dat file to list star names rather than coordinates. Are you interested in helping to create this file? Regarding Alnitak, I will add it to the star catalog once the strings freeze is lifted. thanks, Jason
Are star names translated? I thought they were universal. Constellation names are ok. Then again, this isn't just a string freeze. We're in deep freeze except for showstopper bugs.
> constellation *boundaries*, which I plan to include after 3.2 sounds nice! > I think that the lines used by KStars are fine, but if you are interested in redoing them, we > should just find a widely-used star chart and adopt its constellation lines. I suggest > Uranometria or SkyChart 2000 by Wil Tirion. i did a search for both and downloaded a skychart 3 demo for windows. took a quick look at it and the first thing i thought was "oh no, yet again different constellation lines". however, this weekend i will take a deeper look at it (i still have to figure out how to view the southern sky). an idea that came to my mind: what about introducing an advanced option to allow user-defined constellation lines? this should not be restricted to the stars belonging to a constellation, not even to constellation boundaries, because - there are stars that belong to two constellations, like Alnath is beta Tauri as well as gamma Aurigae, - a user might want to construct the former constellation Argo Navis, which was split up into Vela, Puppis, Carina and Pyxis, - a user might want to only draw lines between certain stars of e.g. Ursa Major to only view "Kleiner Wagen", which is not and never was an official constellation, but is easier to see and hence much more popular than the entire Ursa Major, especially among hobbyists). > I'd like the new clines.dat file to list star names rather than coordinates. Are you interested > in helping to create this file? sure - as long as i don't have to download the whole kdeedu tarball :) > Are star names translated? I thought they were universal. > Constellation names are ok. well, yes and no. some names are germanized/englishized(does this word exist?!)/whatever because many names are based on arabic names and people adopted those names' sound, but writing it the way this sound would be written in their respective language. other reasons for different spelling are the various dialects of the arabic language and the fact that in former times information was spread by word of mouth while written documents got lost/were destroyed. here a little excerpt: >The Arabic name for Betelgeuse is Yad al-Jauza' (1), "Hand of Orion". Betelgeuze is from >Ibt al Jauzah, or bait al-Jauzah "the Armpit of the Central One". Variations are Bed Elgueze, >Beit Algueze, Bet El-geuze, Beteigeuze, Yedelgeuse etc., down to the present title. in other sources about arabic astronoms i have read about different arabic names (rather: descriptions or circumscriptions) for one and the same star that have the same meaning, i have read about the two shoulder-stars of orion having had the same name and so on... as for the constellation names (and several stars), those are mostly based upon the roman and greek mythology and hence have a latin/greek name (lat. Bellatrix means female warrior, Sirius comes from greek seírios which means flaming,hot,bright). while these names seem not to have changed in both english and german, other names (lat. Arcturus --> Arkturus or even Arktur, lat. Vega --> Wega) were germanized: there are lots of words in the german lnguage comming from latin with the only difference that c was replaced by k, so even today if you read "Capella" it might be that this is the origin name as well as the german name, but it might also be that according to c-->k the german name is "Kapella". i for one think that Vega and Capella are the correct german names but there just is no right or wrong. so in the end it depends on personal preference. that's why i think one should take into account the history behind those names. as stated above, the former constellation "Argo Navis" (ship of the argonauts) was split up into Vela, Puppis, Carina and Pyxis. there _are_ sources that translate it as "Segel" (sail), "Heck" (stern), "Kiel" (keel) and "Kompass" (compass) which obviously is not wrong. but sources translating it as "Segel des Schiffes", "Heck des Schiffes", "Kiel des Schiffes" (... of the ship) just seems more appropriate (to me). ==> in the end i think *personal preference* is the crucial point. one can give a user a default but should enable him to make little changes (e.g. constellation lines)... hmmm whether the user should also be able to change the stars' names.. or have a drop-down-menu from which he can choose his preferred name? and when searching for stars all of those possible names for a star are taken into account? now don't beat me i have really no idea if that is possible at all regarding the programming structure of kstars or what that would mean to responsiveness - it's just a thought.
Subject: Re: inaccuracy of data (southern hemisphere) Hello, > i did a search for both and downloaded a skychart 3 demo for windows. took > a quick look at it and the first thing i thought was "oh no, yet again > different constellation lines". however, this weekend i will take a deeper > look at it (i still have to figure out how to view the southern sky). > Actually, I am referring to a paper publication called SkyChart 2000, not a piece of software :) Uranometria is also a book. Both are widely used by amateur astronomers. > an idea that came to my mind: what about introducing an advanced option to > allow user-defined constellation lines? this should not be restricted to > the stars belonging to a constellation, not even to constellation > boundaries, because > - there are stars that belong to two constellations, like Alnath is beta > Tauri as well as gamma Aurigae, > - a user might want to construct the former constellation Argo Navis, which > was split up into Vela, Puppis, Carina and Pyxis, > - a user might want to only draw lines between certain stars of e.g. Ursa > Major to only view "Kleiner Wagen", which is not and never was an official > constellation, but is easier to see and hence much more popular than the > entire Ursa Major, especially among hobbyists). > Well, you can certainly modify clines.dat and/or cnames.dat to specify whatever constellations you'd like. It seems like something that not too many people would be interested in doing, so I'm not sure if actually having a GUI way to do this is justified. > > Are star names translated? I thought they were universal. > > Constellation names are ok. > > well, yes and no. > some names are germanized/englishized(does this word exist?!)/whatever > because many names are based on arabic names and people adopted those > names' sound, but writing it the way this sound would be written in their > respective language. > All star and constellation names are in the kstars.pot file, so they are all available for localization by the translation teams. So I would ask your language's team about cases that are localization issues. If you think the English transcription of a star name is incorrect, let us know. Although, as you know, in many cases the "correct" spelling of a star name is not definitive. e.g., we already modified the spelling of "Rigel Kentaurus" at a user's request, even though "Rigil Kentaurus" appears to be in wide usage as well. > in the end i think *personal preference* is the crucial point. > one can give a user a default but should enable him to make little changes > (e.g. constellation lines)... hmmm whether the user should also be able to > change the stars' names.. or have a drop-down-menu from which he can choose > his preferred name? and when searching for stars all of those possible > names for a star are taken into account? > Interesting idea. It would be easy to add this to, say, the Detailed Information Dialog. But again I think that most people wouldn't bother with renaming of objects. You can always just modify the data files. thanks for your comments, Jason
> Well, you can certainly modify clines.dat and/or cnames.dat to specify > whatever constellations you'd like. It seems like something that not too > many people would be interested in doing, so I'm not sure if actually having > a GUI way to do this is justified. hoped to find those files in my /.kde/share/apps/kstars folder but i had to realize those changes can only be made compile-time. it's just half a year ago that i did the move from windows to gnu/linux. i'm still too spoiled by the ms way to have options nobody needs. i think i'll just stick to printing out screenshots and drawing lines/labeling them by hand - it's not too hard actually :) btw, my offer still stands. i found clines.dat in the web cvs and figured out what numbers that are. please tell me exactly what the new clines.dat should look like. maybe like this? 031204-285900M FORNAX 024905-322500D ... would then be alpha_Fornacis FORNAX beta_Fornacis ... >> I'd like the new clines.dat file to list star names rather than coordinates. Are you interested >> in helping to create this file? > sure - as long as i don't have to download the whole kdeedu tarball :) regards, Clemens
Subject: Re: inaccuracy of data (southern hemisphere) Hello, > hoped to find those files in my /.kde/share/apps/kstars folder but i had to > realize those changes can only be made compile-time. > No, that isn't right. Two things: (1) You can (as root) modify the global instance of any of the data files at $KDEDIR/share/apps/kstars/ and KStars will pick up your changes at run-time. (2) If you copy $KDEDIR/share/apps/kstars/clines.dat to ~/.kde/share/apps/kstars/clines.dat, you can make modifications to your local copy without needing to be root. When that user runs KStars, they will get the modified file. > it's just half a year ago that i did the move from windows to gnu/linux. > i'm still too spoiled by the ms way to have options nobody needs. i think > Like I said, we can do it, but the TODO list is long, and there are many more important and/or interesting things on it. It's just a matter of prioritizing limited developer resources, especially considering we are all hobbyist programmers. > btw, my offer still stands. i found clines.dat in the web cvs and figured > out what numbers that are. please tell me exactly what the new clines.dat > should look like. maybe like this? > > 031204-285900M FORNAX > 024905-322500D > ... > would then be > > alpha_Fornacis FORNAX > beta_Fornacis > ... > Actually, it would be easier if you use the abbreviations found in the hip*.dat files. And use colons to deliminate Star names from constellation names. Actually, I have an idea for a change to this file. We used to have one line per constellation "node", and we used a "M"/"D" flag after each node to tell the program if there should be a line ("D" for draw) or not ("M" for move) between this node and the previous one. Instead, we could list all star names which are connected in one line on the file. So for example Canis Major would consist of two lines (since it has two separate lines on the sky): bet CMa, alp CMa, omi2CMa, del CMa, eta CMa : CANIS MAJORIS del CMa, sig CMa, eps CMa Does that make sense? Jason
>No, that isn't right. Two things: > >(1) You can (as root) modify the global instance of any of the data files at >$KDEDIR/share/apps/kstars/ and KStars will pick up your changes at run-time. > >(2) If you copy $KDEDIR/share/apps/kstars/clines.dat to >~/.kde/share/apps/kstars/clines.dat, you can make modifications to your local >copy without needing to be root. When that user runs KStars, they will get >the modified file. ah, thank you! for now i will stick to kstars' defaults or draw the lines by hand (in the end i do not print screenshots every day anyway), but as soon as we have the new clines.dat complete and kstars handles it i will surely make use of what you advised. >Like I said, we can do it, but the TODO list is long, and there are many more >important and/or interesting things on it. It's just a matter of >prioritizing limited developer resources, especially considering we are all >hobbyist programmers. no, sorry if i sounded grumbly. i don't want gnu/linux/kde to become a second ms. all in all i have 5 or 6 printed screenshots so if i need another one it's not a problem to draw the lines by hand. looking forward to the new clines.dat syntax in connection with the knowledge that i can modify that file and use it at runtime also i have to admit that a gui would be a superfluous code bloat. >Actually, it would be easier if you use the abbreviations found in the >hip*.dat files. And use colons to deliminate Star names from constellation >names. Actually, I have an idea for a change to this file. We used to have >one line per constellation "node", and we used a "M"/"D" flag after each node >to tell the program if there should be a line ("D" for draw) or not ("M" for >move) between this node and the previous one. Instead, we could list all >star names which are connected in one line on the file. So for example Canis >Major would consist of two lines (since it has two separate lines on the >sky): > >bet CMa, alp CMa, omi2CMa, del CMa, eta CMa : CANIS MAJORIS >del CMa, sig CMa, eps CMa > >Does that make sense? yup :) i have made a table containing the current and the new syntax; it's node-by-node for easier comparison but once it's finished it won't take me long to put them into lines, one line for each 'M'. if you want to take a look at it: i have uploaded a copy of the openoffice document at http://www.psychotekk.de/extern/CLinesNew.sxw regards, Clemens
Subject: Re: inaccuracy of data (southern hemisphere) > i have made a table containing the current and the new syntax; it's > node-by-node for easier comparison but once it's finished it won't take me > long to put them into lines, one line for each 'M'. > if you want to take a look at it: i have uploaded a copy of the openoffice > document at http://www.psychotekk.de/extern/CLinesNew.sxw > > regards, > Clemens Fantastic! It's looking good. thanks, Jason
ok, the table is finished. i have to check the sigma-stars again though: in gemini for example, there are two stars that use different sigma-signs. for both i used "sig". i doubt that is correct? please enlighten me :) when i have corrected that, there will be still some things missing: - for 62 stars the gen. name is missing - for the constellations Carina, Dorado, Indus, Mensa, Musca, Octans, Pavo, Pictor, Reticulum, Triangulum Australe there is no clines data yet at all. - the notes in the current clines.dat sais: Vela {may not be complete} Phoenix {may not be complete} Horologium {not complete} - i'm not sure if "pi Ceti" belongs to the constellation Eridanus? is there an online source for the official data that is used by kstars so i can check/complete that? apart from the clines data, i have found several constellation labels not quite stick to their constellations. this should wait as it is probably best adjusted when there are constellation boundaries to orientate on. regards, Clemens
i think i have just found the answer: http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=72900 well i'm gonna go through the table again the next days and correct that.
so far so good. the missing data (marked orange) requires the correct sources which i do not have. if someone has them feel free to complete the table! ;-) http://www.psychotekk.de/extern/CLinesNew.sxw
Subject: kdeedu/kstars/kstars CVS commit by harris: Improved Constellation Lines. The "nodes" of the constellation lines are now anchored to the actual stars, rather than being independent points on the sky. This means that as stars drift due to their proper motions, the constellations will automatically distort to keep up with the new star positions. In addition, all 88 constellations now have lines. Thanks go to Clemens for identifying each of the stars that make up the constellation nodes. We identify stars by their "Genitive name", which makes sense because these names refer to the parent constellation (i.e., "alpha Andromedae"). One new feature required by this constellation scheme is that it is now possible to have genitive star names that do not contain greek letters (i.e., "51 Ursa Majoris"). At this point, only those stars which are constellation nodes have this new kind of genitive name, but there are thousands of stars that could be named in this way, if someone wants to tackle that :) I also had to make minor changes to the way that star names are assigned, in order to make this work properly. Please test! Don't forget to run "make install", as data files have changed. Also added missing name for zeta Orionis: "Alnitak" CCMAIL: kstars-devel@kde.org CCMAIL: 72632-done@bugs.kde.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M +54 -31 kstarsdata.cpp 1.112 M +1 -2 starobject.cpp 1.19 M +981 -742 data/clines.dat 1.7 M +48 -48 data/hip001.dat 1.4 M +8 -8 data/hip002.dat 1.3 M +2 -2 data/hip003.dat 1.3