Planetary Events Scripts
Version 2.5
Files
1) Mercury Events.ssc (3)
4) Venus Events.ssc (3)
7) Mars Events.ssc
(3)
10) Jupiter Events.ssc
11) Saturn Events.ssc
12) Uranus Events.ssc
13) Neptune Events.ssc
Instructions:
1) Download zip file
2) Extract the files
3) Run Stellarium
4) Run scripts
5) Run file
6) From Main Menu
Press = or - to toggle choices
Press [ to select choice and run in Key press mode
Press ] to select choice and run in Screensaver Mode
7) When running Key press mode
Press = to go to the next conjunction
Press - to go to the previous one
Press [ to start over (at the original date)
Press ] to go back to Main Menu
8) When running Screensaver mode
Press any date key = - [ ] to return to main menu
General Notes:
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New in Version 2.5
* Reduced File size and memory requirements
* Fixed Mercury Menu bug
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Fixed Venus Menu bug
* Added more Deneb Algedi conjunctions to Mars script
New in Version 2.4
* Added Moon Events to all scripts
New in Version 2.3
* Added Neptune Events script
* Added more star
conjunctions to Jupiter & Uranus scripts
New in Version 2.2
* Added Uranus Events script
New in Version 2.1
* Added Mercury Events scripts
* Divided Mars & Venus Scripts in small,
medium, large files (See below)
* Added more Menu choices in Venus script
*
Added more Menu choices in Mars script
* Added Farthest Distances, Greatest &
Dimmest Brilliancies, Brilliancy milestones to Mars Script
* Added Venus
Conjunctions to Mars script - Somehow they were inadvertently left out
New in Version 2.0
* Added Saturn events
* Added Venus dimmest brilliancies
* Scripts
Determine Latitude and Longitude accurately
* Determines best viewing time
nearest to event from observer location
* User can change Latitude and
Longitude while running script
* Added light travel times
* Added more star conjunctions
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There are 3 versions each of the Mercury, Venus and Mars scripts. Small, Medium and Large. Each planet's scripts are identical except for the date range of the events. They all start with the year 2000 and all the large scripts ends at the year 3000. The smaller and medium in scripts end years earlier.
The reason to have three is because Stellarium is a memory hog, and unfortunately on some computers, having a more events means a larger script file which can cause Stellarium to run bad and/or crash.
For the Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune scripts, there's no reason to do this as their slower rotation around the sun means fewer events which equals a smaller file size.
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Conjunctions: The definition of conjunctions used in this script is Conjunctions are the closest approach two bodies come to each other. Another definition of Conjunction often is used is the time two bodies are at the same Right Ascension. So the time of a conjunction here might not match other sources.
Conjunction cut off: For bright stars Aldebaran, Antares, Regulus, Spica, Pleiades I use 6.5° as the cut off for what's a conjunction or not, dimmer stars & nebula I use 1°, the tiny crab nebula I use 0.1°
I excluded all Mercury, Venus, Mars and star conjunctions where they are less than 12° from the sun, If I included them there would be 3x as many conjunctions and the script would be cluttered with conjunctions you wouldn't be able to see anyhow.
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The Scripts will attempt to display the closest and best viewing time for the Latitude and Longitude. It mostly gets it right.
The information shown for each event are for the time of the event. The Planet might be in a slightly different position when the event displays
The Exceptions are transits of the sun by Mercury and Venus, the scripts will go to the exact time of the transit, even if it is below the horizon
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Moon
In version 2.4 Moon Conjunctions were added to the scripts
Moon conjunctions don't go to the year 3000 yet. I calculated the conjunction times using Stellarium and it takes about 10 hours to calculate 100 years. As such I didn't complete them and the Conjunctions only go to years 2100 - 2200.
Moon conjunction times and separation angle was calculated from Long 0 and Lat 0 without the ground. Times and separation angles might be slightly different at other locations.
Magnitudes:
You would think this would be easy to calculate and there would be one simple universal way to calculate magnitudes of the planets. This is not true however and magnitude values vary from source to source. For example some sources claim Venus max brightness is -4.4 while others have it at -4.9 and everything in between. As such my calculations for the planets maybe slightly different than Stellarium (I don't know the numbers/calculations they use). For example where as in Stellarium Venus' brightest magnitudes are about -4.55 mine are about -4.85. Jupiter and Earth (though not the moon) also come out slightly different in my calculations. I base my calculations off the JPL Horizons site and my magnitudes seems to match theirs.
The biggest difference of all though is Saturn, Stellarium doesn't factor ring tilt when calculating magnitude where my scripts do. So the more the rings are tilted the bigger the difference between my script and Stellarium. Uranus' rings are too faint to have any effect on it's brightness as seen from earth.
Mars' Magnitudes are also slightly different (Between .1 & .2 Mag) from the script and Stellarium. As such Brilliancy milestones (i.e. Brightens to -1) are slightly different from Stellarium's numbers.
Even though Magnitude numbers might be different, regardless of the number, greatest & dimmest brilliancies dates are the same.
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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.
Mercury has 3 cycles that repeat closely repeat every year. I named these 1-2-3. The 1st cycle was the cycle Mercury was in 1/1/2000.
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Mars Opposition, Closest Approach and Greatest Brilliancy:
You would think they would all be at the same time. But they are not, the date Mars makes it's closest approach to Earth is different from it's opposition date, this difference can be ± a couple of days to up to ± a week. You would also think Mars' greatest Brilliancy would be during it's closest approach being closer = brighter. Not exactly, because during opposition Mars' phase is more fuller and fuller phase = brighter. So due to phase versus closeness, Mars' greatest brilliancy will occur between opposition and closest approach. Since phase changes have more of an effect (think Full Moon vs ½ Moon), Mars' greatest brilliancy will be closer to it's opposition date.
Jupiter's opposition & closest approach are about 1 day apart. Both are included in the script. Jupiter's Greatest Brilliancy is minutes/hours after opposition, but the magnitude difference between Opposition, Greatest Brilliancy & Closest approach is so miniscule that it really wasn't worth it to include Greatest Brilliancy in the script.
The other outer planets Opposition, Greatest Brilliancy and Closest Approach all occur within minutes of each other so there's little point in including all of them and only opposition is in the scripts.
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Mars' Dimmest Brilliancy is not always near Superior conjunction or when Mars is furthest away from Earth. Due to a combo of phase and distance Mars' dimmest brilliancy can occur anytime when it is from 0° up to near 50° elongation from the sun. There's always a morning/western dimmest brilliancy, however sometimes there isn't a evening/eastern one, that is Mars will continue to dim right up to and through Superior conjunction and be at it's dimmest sometime on the morning/western side.
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Mercury's Potential Best:
Unlike Venus & Mars, Mercury's brightest
magnitude is always near Superior Conjunction. This is because at Mercury's
distance from Earth, what phase Mercury is in is pretty much the only factor in
what magnitude is it. At Superior Conjunction it is 100% full while at Inferior
Conjunction it is 0%, so after Superior Conjunction even though it gets closer &
closer to Earth, Mercury continually dims up to Inferior Conjunction and then
likewise after Inferior Conjunction as Mercury gets farther & farther it still
continually brightens until Superior Conjunction.
This makes Mercury difficult to observe. When it is brightest, it's lost in the glare of the sun and when it is at it greatest elongation it is dim. So Mercury's potential best viewing time is when it is far enough to be out of the solar glare but close enough to be at a bright phase.
This time is subjective, but for the script I chose when Mercury is at 18° elongation on the far side of the sun. It phase is equivalent to a gibbous moon and at 18° when Mercury would be still up after Astronomical Twilight if it rides high in the Northern Hemisphere or runs low in the Southern Hemisphere
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Transit: When the body crosses the meridian.
Elongation: The separation in degrees between the planet and sun.
RA Elongation: The Right Ascension separation between sun and body
Magnitude: The brightness of the planet.
Rides High / Runs Low: This is the declination difference between the sun and planet. When the planet rides high it is above the sun, runs low it is below. In the Northern Hemisphere when the planet (especially inferior ones) "rides high" it is more easily viewable and when it runs low even though it might have a large elongation from the sun it could be hard to view. In the Southern Hemisphere the opposite is true so "runs low" is better.
Ring Tilt: The tilt of Saturn's rings. Heliocentric is the tilt as seen from the sun. Geocentric is the tilt from the Earth.
Phase Angle: This is the angle from the planet to the sun and earth. Range is from °0 to 180°. If it's zero the planet appears "full", if it's 90 degrees it appears "half", and if it's 180 degrees it appears "new". Only the Moon and Mercury and Venus can have phase angles exceeding about 50 degrees. Interestingly the phase angle is also the elongation from the sun the earth would be if you were on the planet.
Earth Shine: This is the phase the Earth would be if you were on the planet
Earth Mag: This is the magnitude the Earth would if you were on the planet
Moon Mag: This is the magnitude the moon would be if you were on the planet
You can zoom in and out of scripts as you see fit.
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There are two modes to select Key Press Mode and Screensaver Mode
Key press mode, the conjunction will display until you press one of the = - [ ] keys
Screen Saver Mode the script will behave LIKE a screensaver.
Keyword LIKE, it doesn't work exactly like a screensaver,
When you select screensaver mode, up will pop the 1st conjunction, the program will hold for 3 seconds (This is the default time, you can edit this time in the script file if you wish) and then go to the next conjunction and again hold for 3 seconds and then the next conjunction and on and on.
To leave the screen saver, unlike "real" screensavers pressing any key or moving the mouse will not cause the screensaver to end, with these scripts only changing the date by pressing the dates keys will cause the screensaver to end.
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All these scripts will start at the next up coming event.
For example with Mars Events script file
On 10/1/2015 it should start with the Antares - Mars conjunction on 10/20/2015
On 10/20/2015 it should still start with the conjunction on 10/20/2015
But on 10/21/2015 the program will then start with the Mars - Mercury
conjunction on 11/6/2015
If you want to start on a different date, just adjust the date to where you want to start in the main menu
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These scripts were designed to be used with landscapes that have minimal obstructions on the horizon
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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.
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I can be emailed at qam1@aol.com