Previous page Page 49 Next page Table of Contents
the planet wanders off the screen, much like a telescope without a telescope drive; but the Moving option forces a "moving target", such as a planet, asteroid, comet, or satellite, to stay at the center of the chart. To see how the "Horizon" option works, go to a Level 4 (20-degree) field of view. Click on "Go To... Horizon" and select "NE" (move to Northeast horizon). Go to the Inversion Dialog and select Zenith Up. You will see the horizon as a dark blue line near the bottom of the chart (and/or as a filled-in ground area, or with objects such as trees, if you have selected those options in the Background dialog). Go back to the Animation Dialog, set a 5-minute stepsize, click on the "Horizon" radio button, and start animating. As the name suggests, the horizon will now stay fixed while everything else moves (stars rise above the northeast horizon). In general, the idea is that if you go to a particular altitude and azimuth (in this case, about 8 degrees above the horizon and at azimuth=45 degrees), that point stays fixed while stars, planets, and so forth rotate by. Next in the Animation menu are the "Add a Trail" and "Make Ephemeris" options. The process for adding a trail may take some practice. Let's take an example. Suppose you would like to create a trail (or an ephemeris) describing the motion of Mars starting at 10 Nov 1993, and running for 100 days after that. You need to make sure that the time (in the Time Menu) is set to 10 Nov 1993, and that your location is set correctly (in the "Location" option in the Settings menu). Then click on Mars with the RIGHT mouse button; this will immediately result in the usual brief summary of data concerning Mars. When you click on a solar system object, the Add A Trail and Make Ephemeris options are not gray any more: you can make a trail or ephemeris for that object now. If you click on a non-solar system object, you can't make a trail or ephemeris, and these two options remain grayed out. When you click on "Add a Trail", you'll see this dialog box: Step size: [ 10 min] [x] Round to nearest step [x] Index marks Index freq [ 2 ] [x] Time labels on Time label freq [ 6 ] Number of steps [ 100 ] Add a Trail... Clear Trails Cancel With the above settings, you would be telling Guide to show the
Previous page Page 49 Next page Table of Contents