Earth from Other Bodies
Scripts for Stellarium

7 Files

1) earth_1.ssc: Earth Best View from other bodies of the 21st Century

2) earth_2.ssc: Earth - Events from Mercury.ssc

3) earth_3.ssc: Earth - Events from Venus.ssc

4) earth_4.ssc: Earth Events from Mars.ssc

5) earth_5.ssc: Earth (and Venus, Jupiter & Saturn)- Greatest Elongations and Oppositions from Mars.ssc

6) earth_6.ssc: Earth and Mars Greatest Elongations and Transits from Callisto

7) earth_7.ssc: Earth and other planets Greatest Elongations and Oppositions from Ceres

New in Version 10.0

Date 9/24/17

* Works with Stellarium 0.16.1, if you are using a previous version of Stellarium download the relevant previous version of these scripts below

* Stellarium changed the name of the Asteroid Ceres, from "Ceres" to "(1) Ceres", the scripts in version 10 have updated to match name change.

New in Version 9

Date 9/17/2017

* Works with Stellarium 0.16.0, if you are using a previous version of Stellarium download the previous version of these scripts below

* Longitudes changed again in Stellarium, updated relevant scripts to match

New in Version 8.0

Date 2/7/2016

* Again Callisto longitudes in the earth_6.ssc had to be fixed. They should be correct now.

* Added the bests Earth view from the moon back to earth_1.ssc .

New in Version 7.0

Date 10/1/2015

* Updated Callisto longitudes in the earth_6.ssc script. The Longitudes were placed wrong on Callisto in Stellarium. This will be fixed in Stellarium 0.14.0.

New in Version 6.1

Date 12/7/2014

* Added earth_7.ssc, Earth and other planets Greatest Elongations and Oppositions from Ceres

* Added Venus and Earth conjunctions to earth_2.ssc Earth events from Mercury

* Added Jupiter and Saturn Oppositions to earth_5.ssc Earth and Venus from Mars

New in version 6.0

Date 6/25/14

Note: Version 6.0 is designed to work with Stellarium Versions 0.12.4 or later.

* Earth 6, moved script from Jupiter to Callisto and added transits.

Why Callisto? Well of the 4 Galilean Satellites, Callisto is the only one outside of Jupiter's radiation belt. Therefore, if humans ever colonize Jupiter's moons, Callisto will be the one.

* Distinguished Transits from Inferior Conjunctions in Earth 4 script

New in version 5.1

Date 7/2/2013

Stellarium 0.12.1

1) Return the Earth from others script (earth_1.ssc). Due to changes in Solar day calculations & Jupiter's rotation in version 0.12.0 and 0.12.1 the version of this script that comes with Stellarium no longer works. The one will work with the changes in 0.12.0 and 0.12.1, though the closest Earth from the Moon had to be removed.

2) Updated longitude in the Earth - Greatest Elongations from Jupiter.ssc so it works with the above changes in 0.12.0

3) Fixed Earth's greatest elongations from Mars. Unfortunately in previous versions the dates were wrong but they are finally right now.

4) Added light travel times.

5) Added combined magnitude for earth & moon. The moon only adds about 0.02 to the earth so I'll probably remove this in future versions

New in version 5.0

Date: 5/19/2012

Stellarium 0.12.1

1) Updated all scripts to work with versions 0.12.1 and later

2) Updated Earth Oppositions from Venus to Earth Events from Venus. So instead of just Oppositions there are now more events as seen from Venus like Greatest moon Elongation, Start and Stop and Regain Retrograde motion, CoQuadratures, Quadratures, Superior Conjunctions and conjunctions with planets and bright stars.

3) Updated Earth Oppositions from Mercury to Earth Events from Mercury. So instead of just Oppositions, also included is closest approaches. More events to come in later versions.

4) Updated Earth Events from Mars to include Top & Bottom of Zodiac and equator crossings. Fixed degree sign

5) Fixed Degree sign in Venus & Earth Greatest Elongations script. New Title screen

6) Removed Earth best views from others script. It now comes with Stellarium, so no need to repeat here.

New in version 4.0

Date: 5/12/2012

Stellarium 11.2

1) Added - Earth Events from Mars file. This script will display Earth events as seen from Mars like Greatest Elongations, Greatest Brilliancies, Start and Stop Retrograde, CoQuadratures, Superior and Inferior Conjunctions and conjunctions with planets and bright stars.

2) Added Venus Greatest elongations to the Earth - Greatest Elongations from Mars.ssc script

3) Added Mars Greatest Elongations to Earth - Greatest Elongations from Jupiter.ssc script

New in version 3.1

1) Fixed Typo in Jupiter Script

New in version 3

1) Greatest Brilliancies from Mars.
2) Screen Saver Mode
3) Magnitude, Phase, Moon calculations
4) More Menu choices
Instructions:

1) Download file
2) Extract the file into script directory
3) Run Stellarium
4) Open script
5) Run file
6) Follow Directions on script's main menu
Description:

1) Earth - Best views of from other bodies 2000-2100.ssc
Script contains the best date in the 21st century to view Earth from every other planet and our moon.

Planets / Date / Comment

Mercury: 5/31/2061 - Interestingly Mercury is closest to Earth while Earth is farthest from the sun.

Venus: 12/17/2093 - Closest Earth Opposition of the 21st century as seen from a floating city 50000 meters up.

Moon: 1/4/2049 - The moon becomes completely new (resulting in the brightest fullest Earth) within 4 minutes of Perigee.

Mars: 8/12/2084 - Like Earth with Venus, Earth's greatest illumination occurs about a month after it's greatest elongation. The best one in the 21st century is in 2084 when Earth is particularly close and bright. Bonus! Phobos occults Earth the very same night. Make Reservations now to be on Mars this day!!! Note: if you break from the script here and return to normal time rate, the occultation will occur in about 1½ minutes (Phobos moves fast)

Ceres: 10/19/2082 - From Ceres the Earth has equally really bright greatest illumination dates at 23 and 9 year intervals. I went with 2082 because at the same time there's also a triple conjunction between Earth, Venus and Mars.

Jupiter: 7/15/2058 - 11.603°

Saturn: 9/15/2031 - 6.343° through the rings

Uranus: 6/16/2052 - 3.181°

Neptune: 7/17/2031- 1.952°

Pluto: 9/1/2000 - 1.934° - Every day in the 21st Century Pluto gets farther and farther from the sun (and thus Earth) so it's best view of course is right in the beginning,.

For the outer planets, for the best date, I use when the Earth is farthest angular separation (The greatest - greatest elongation) from the sun. The Earth will brighten from greatest elongation to superior conjunction, but because the angular separation is small if you were on these planets you wouldn't be able to see earth at other times.

The view from the gas giants is from the tops of their atmosphere.

Pressing the [ key turns on and off all flags and labels, this way you can see Earth as it really would be

2) Earth - Events from Mercury.ssc

Script will show how, where and what Earth will look like during oppositions, closest approaches, superior conjunctions and Venus & Earth conjunctions from the surface of Mercury.

Latitude: As the start of the script the program will get your latitude and it will use the same on Mercury.

Longitude: Trying to calculate the best time to see an Earth opposition from a fixed longitude on Mercury has the same problems as Venus so I also had to change longitude to follow the opposition. Though it's much more difficult as there are 3 oppositions at 3 separate spaced out longitudes in a year. There is however a repeating pattern. The next 3 oppositions shift are the same as before except shifted ~9 Degrees to the east, for example if a set of 3 oppositions have a overhead longitude of W117, 0, E135 then the next 3 will be W1`08, E9 and E144 and the next W99, E18 and E152 which will result in a 40 year repeating pattern.

When I was making this program I had the current cycle (1,2 or 3) and Longitude displayed to help me figure out this pattern. I left it in just as a FYI

3) Earth - Events from Venus.ssc
Script will show how, where and what Earth will look like during oppositions from a floating city on Venus.
Many scientist believe that it is not the Moon or Mars that we will colonize first, but instead we will colonize Venus. While the surface of Venus at 800°F is out of the question, humans might instead attempt to colonize the Venusian atmosphere in floating cities. This is because at an altitude of approximately 50 kilometers in Venus' upper atmosphere, the pressure and temperature are quite Earth-like (1 bar and 0-50 degrees Celsius).

On Venus, Earth will come into opposition about every 17 months, this script will show where and what Earth will look at on those opposition dates and other events such as Greatest moon Elongation, Start and Stop and Regain Retrograde motion, CoQuadratures, Quadratures, Superior Conjunctions and conjunctions with planets and bright stars to anyone who is on one of these floating cities.

Longitude: Due to Venus' slow 243 Earth day rotation it might be many months after the event that Earth rotates into view. However, being in a floating city, longitude is not fixed so instead of time I just move the city to the longitude that's good to observe the Earth event. That's not too much of a stretch as at ~50000 km any floating city would rotate around Venus every 4 days which is more reasonable then 243.

Venus Cycles: Venus has 5 cycles that repeat every 8 years. Surprisingly no has named them. Being Venus is the Goddess of Love and "Amore" is Latin for love and has 5 letters, I called the cycle by each letter A-M-O-R-E. Each cycle begins at Superior Conjunction and the 1st "A" cycle was the cycle Venus was in 1/1/2000.

Greatest Moon Elongation: That's when the moon is the greatest elongation away from earth as seen from Mercury or Venus. Happens near opposition.

Some related links of interest
Colonization of Venus - Wikipedia
Colonization of Venus - Geoffrey A. Landis
A Floating City on Venus

4) Earth Events from Mars.ssc

This script will display Earth events as seen from Mars like Greatest Elongations, Greatest Brilliancies, Start and Stop Retrograde, CoQuadratures, Superior and Inferior Conjunctions and conjunctions with planets and bright stars.

Conjunction with planets/stars are when Earth and the planet/star are within 5 degrees of each other. Conjunctions that happen less than 12 degrees elongation from the sun are not included.

Previous versions prior to 5.1 had Earth's Greatest Elongation wrong. In version 2.0 I mistakenly calculated Coquadrature instead of GE. From 3.0-5.0 I mistakenly calculated Mars' quadrature from Earth and reversed it for Greatest Elongation on Mars. If orbits were perfect circles quadrature on one planet would be he same time as greatest elongation on the other, but orbits are elliptical not circles. Mars' orbit is especially elliptical, as such Earth's Greatest Elongation

5) Earth - Greatest Elongations and Transits from Mars.ssc

This script will show what Earth and Venus will look like on Mars on the dates when they reach greatest elongation and when Earth reaches it's greatest brilliancy.

Due to the eccentricity of Mars' orbit it's also more variable. Earth can separate from the sun between 38° and 47°

Mars comes particularly close to the Earth near it's opposition approximately every 15 - 17 years i.e. 2003, 2018, 2035, etc, during these times Mars is at it's brightest as seen from Earth. However these years aren't particularly impressive when viewing Earth from Mars, but approximately 2 years before (during morning greatest elongations) and 2 years after (during evening greatest elongations) these close encounters, Earth will have it's largest Greatest Elongations and best showing as seen from Mars.

6) Earth - Greatest Elongations from Callisto.ssc

This script will show what Earth and Mars will look like on Callisto on the dates when it reaches it's greatest elongation.

Earth at it's Greatest Elongation as seen from Callisto separates only between 10.2° to 11.9° from the sun

7) Earth (And other Planets)- Greatest Elongations and Oppositions from Ceres.ssc

This script will show what Earth and Mars will look like on Ceres on the dates when it reaches it's greatest elongation and Jupiter and Saturn when they reach opposition.

Earth at it's Greatest Elongation as seen from Callisto separates only between 10.2° to 11.9° from the sun

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Elongation: The separation in degrees between the planet and sun.

Greatest Brilliancy: When the planet is brightest.

Magnitude: The brightness of the planet. Depending on what source you use, magnitude values vary widely. I use th JPL and my calculations for Earth seem to come about -0.3 magnitudes brighter than Stellariums.

Illumination: This is the percent the planet that is sunlit as visible from earth.

Moon Elong: The separation in degrees the moon is from the earth as seen from the planet

Moon Mag: The magnitude of the moon. My calculations seem to match Stellarium's pretty closely

Coquadrature: Earth and the planet are at a right angle to each other from the sun. It's essentially the border when Earth and the planet or on the same or opposite side on the sun.

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No I didn't type all these years and times out. I wrote a computer program based on Paul Schlyter's work at

http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/comp/ppcomp.html

which produced all these values.

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My dates I calculated do seem to match other dates from a wide variety of sources, but I make no guarantee on accuracy.

I'm sure accuracy decreases the further back or forward in time any given script goes.

I can be emailed at qam1@aol.com