Astroblog: Adding 2009 DD45 to Celestia and Stellarium

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Adding 2009 DD45 to Celestia and Stellarium

As I've mentioned before, you can add new objects, such as comets and asteroids, to Celestia and Stellarium. I've made up a Stellarium add-on and a Celestia .ssc file for 2009 DD45. A bit late I know, as the object has wizzed by, but you can vicariously enjoy the experience.

For Stellarium, you have to add the asteroid details to the ssystem.ini file in the data folder (always make a backup of this file okay). Just copy and paste the section below at the end of the system.ini file. When you run Stellarium, you will have to turn planet hints on in the configuration menu if they are not already on. For Celestia the .ssc file goes into the extras folder.

Here the DD45 files, data taken from the MPC. If you are unsure of where DD45 is use the search function, you have to type in 2009 DD45 for the search to work.
[DD45]
name = 2009 DD45
parent = Sun
radius = 0.03
oblateness = 0.0
albedo = 0.423
lighting = true
sidereal_period =
halo = true
color = 1.0,1.0,1.0
tex_halo = star16x16.png
tex_map = nomap.png
coord_func = comet_orbit
orbit_Epoch = 2454880.5
orbit_MeanAnomaly = 349.78408
orbit_SemiMajorAxis = 1.3494665
orbit_Eccentricity = 0.2656185
orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 4.09212
orbit_AscendingNode = 162.04614
orbit_Inclination = 13.22360

======= 8< cut here DD45.ssc 8< ==========================
"2009 DD45" "Sol"
{
Class "asteroid"
Mesh "ky26.cmod"
Texture "asteroid.jpg"
Radius 0.015 # maximum semi-axis about 20-30 meters
MeshCenter [ -0.000718 -0.000099 0.000556 ]

InfoURL "http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Unusual/K09D45D.html"

EllipticalOrbit
{
Epoch 2454880.5 # 2009 Feb. 18.0 00:00UT
Period 1.57
SemiMajorAxis 1.3494665
Eccentricity 0.2656185
Inclination 13.22360
AscendingNode 162.04614
ArgOfPericenter 4.09212
MeanAnomaly 349.78408
}

RotationPeriod 0.178

Albedo 0.15

}
=========== 8 < cut here 8< =============================

If you want to make your own files in the future, you can use the data sources I linked to in my post Making SSC Files for Celestia.

Labels: asteroids, celestia, stellarium