Re: [guide-user] Bug of Uranus rotation
Bill J Gray Jan 29, 2004
Hi Masaki,
Thanks for mentioning this. These problems are all related.
Uranus (and its satellites, and Pluto and Charon) rotate
"backward". A while ago, when I revised how Guide displays
planets and natural satellites, I included code to tell Guide
to draw half the planet: the half facing toward the observer.
For Uranus and Pluto and their satellites, this test was
wrong: it resulted in Guide showing the half facing _away_
from the observer. We usually see these planets almost
completely illuminated; instead, Guide drew the side that is
almost completely unilluminated.
The bitmap is perfectly OK. (If you right-click on the Moon,
then on Display... Options, you can set the "Earthshine" parameter
to be 100%. This causes all planets/satellites to be drawn as if
they were fully illuminated, all the time. If you do this, then
Uranus and Pluto will show up. But the wrong side will still show
up, and it will still rotate backwards, and the moon and planets
will no longer show phases.)
I think I have fixed all of this, and the next time I post an
update, these problems will be gone.
-- Bill