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How to use Starry Night Pro to simulate the Grail MoonKam system?

Munnecke

April 04, 2012 08:05

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Originally from ticket #5417.

I am using the MoonKam system from Sally Ride Science to take pictures of the moon from the NASA Grail misssion https://moonkam.ucsd.edu/ (see my first shot at http://munnecke.com/blog/?p=1445 ).

I would like to set up my Starry Night Pro system to show the camera's perspective from the Grail Cameras - in particular, I want to find out and show the exact "Earthrise" timings to know when the camera would show the earth over the horizon.

how can I set up Starry Night to show this?

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3 comments

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  Dave Whipps April 05, 2012 14:48

  Starry Night does not currently display the positions of the Grail spacecraft. Have a look at Eyes on the Solar System, here:

  http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes/player/index.html?document=$SERVERURL/content/documents/grail/v1.0/grail.xml

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  Munnecke April 05, 2012 19:57

  Thanks... this is a a fantastic tool for teaching. Kids want to "see the 
  movie" when I talk about astronomy in my presentations, so giving them this 
  tool is a wonderful approach.

  For figuring out the "earthrise" timing and geometry, however, this seems 
  to be difficult. I don't need a realistic view of the moon (which would be 
  nice), but rather a way of detecting when the earth will appear over the 
  horizon from one of the Grail satellites. Is it possible to enter the 
  orbital elements on the moon and then see the earthrise this way?

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  Dave Whipps April 05, 2012 20:23

  In general, it's possible to add satellites or other orbiting objects around Moons and other solar system bodies, but finding those orbital elements can be a challenge. I looked around on NASAs site and couldn't find them. Feel free to have a look!