NB Astronomy 101 *SPOILERS*

I've been wondering a bit about whether or not there's a difference between being in a scene or on the map. At this time I can only conclude that for anyone who wants to track celestial bodies.. the old practice of doing everything from the same place seems the most effective. What I would really love at this point is a functioning sextant.

I think there may still be a couple unidentified constellations up there but I've run out of classic Ultima symbols to match them up with. Also I'd like to somehow map constellations but in the attempt I believe I'm noticing some of that distortion you mentioned earlier.. not making my life any easier.

So just let me recap in a nutshell. We have 9 independent "planets" (including Daedelus).. two sets of constellations orbiting on separate planes.. and the skybox itself.

 

Put Light on your non-combat bar.

Put an heavy weight on it.

It will keep casting it, running out of focus eventually, but preventing the inactivity timeout.

 

Good Job Man !

 

Here ya go @Bowen Bloodgood. I made a 4-hour timelapse...but facing directly North.

The jumps are due to cutting out the daytime segments as that was too jarring in the sped up video.



It's hard to tell in the short video (4 hours out of a 2-week real-time cycle) but it really does look like the "North star" is going to sit right at the horizon, based on how I think the skybox is set up.

 

This is fantastic work. I really hope they up the res on the stars. I can't imagine not... but I did hear during a hangout they were concerned about res for background images causing issues if too high. Heck, to have them shimmer/twinkle would be cool.

 

It would be a simple matter to make the rez optional. So hopefully they'll get to it before long.

 

WOW WOW WOW
what a great pc of info you have here.

i will have to try to stop by for one of your astronomy classes

 

Hi folks!

Today i decided to wander around novia looking for scenes i never visited or i visited a long time ago. I left Brightbone pass and night came in, and as i looked up towards the sky i noticed daedalus and the "purple whirpool" were about to get into conjunction. I remembered this thread and thought that maybe somebody enjoy the images of the phenomenon.

The first sight

Spoiler

Almost there...

Spoiler

There you go!

Spoiler

Finally Daedalus moves past the purple whirpool

Spoiler

Last picture before the sun steals away this beautiful view

Spoiler

I hope all the sky gazers enjoy this!

 

Awesome pics! Did you happen to record the Novian date/time of when that conjunction happened? Or is it still too early to start tracking these events as the orbital mechanics might change again?

 

has anyone found a correlation between theses celestial events and a real world callender?

 

Thanks smack! It's true i should've taken a picture with the date when the conjunction happened... but i wasn't doing some IRL stuff and didn't think much about it . By reading the rest of theories on this post i also came to the conclusion that this iteration of the astronomical system is not final, so i'd say we can expect changes.

I Don't think anybody has gathered that amount of data at the moment... but i'm pretty sure the wise men will gather around a Darkstarr Moondial as soon as it's working to uncover the secrets of the stars

 

I'm probably about 95% certain that the current sky is not final. There are too many anomalies. Such as fast planets passing behind slower ones.. the Crook and Ankh appear in the south while all the planets are in the north making any events pertaining to Spirituality and Humility impossible to witness etc. They will no doubt finalize the sky at the same time they rebuild and tune the moondial. Until such time, gathering more data will likely be fruitless. Hopefully by the end of the year.

 

I've been taking a lot of screenshots every Friday or anytime I see something I find interesting.



One of my personal favorites so far. 'Sacrifice' passing through the Tear of Sacrifice. I had almost gotten a shot of valor passing the sword but the sun came up before I could get a good pic. (and I went and named the pic wrong.. oh well)



This is yellow/Compassion eclipsing the sun.



Blue, Orange, White and.. I'm really starting to think this is Black. Plus you can always see the ring of Daedelus. It's not quite an alignment but it was getting pretty close.



If I had taken this shot without the UI I'm sure I could compose it into something decent. But I think it looks nice as is for the moment.

 

I want to be with you if I get lost in the forest

GJ man !

 

LOL but I'd be afraid you'd try to eat me or something. Actually I had just thought I'd love to have some kind of night sky screenshot contest but I have no prizes to offer.

 

In response to comments made during the R24 Hangout.. I suspect that maybe the Devs consider the current night sky to be 'complete'. Also along with some comments made during the chat.. I am now taking up the challenge to record the following data to be recording here.

Real hours for some complete orbit for all celestial bodies.. basically this will be from apex to apex. Plus initial date of first observation. Someone should be able to make some kind of app out of that.. in fact I might know just the fellow.

 

Just some basic notes and thoughts as I get started.

Time scale is 1/24 with 336 days in the New Britannia year with 28 day months.

For my own purposes I'm dividing the sky into 12ths as the constellation layout is such that while there are two groups of 14.. one constellation out of each group is below the other 6 which are arranged basically in line. Will have to review my notes on this.. I will be referring to the position I'm using to track data as N0 or North 0 which positions on either side but +n and -n going clockwise.

Midnight is top of the hour, every hour.

I know that the constellation's orbit is faster than I first thought.. Which was one full orbit each NB year. But as I've observed tonight much faster movement over the period of a few 'days' it must be faster than that.

Note: day time and weather are greatly hindering any meaningful data during these times. VERY annoying and I'm only just getting started!

So far the only meaningful peace of new data I have is Purple at N0 at 11pm tonight.. (midnight March 24).

I may elect to add this information to one of the earlier posts.

 

First of all, I'd like to say how fantastic this thread is! While I'm intrigued with the whole SOTA Astronomy system and understand it can have some major importance with predicting weather and perhaps even events... I admit that I haven't spent much time trying to track it just yet. But I do want to get involved and certainly want the information when it's all figured out.

Also, given the fact that it may require long time spans of observation to get proper data, I believe this needs to be a community effort to get enough data to figure out the patterns and eventually get them into a tracking app.

So I'd like to start doing some observations and contribute to this thread and to your efforts Bowen. But, to be honest, I don't know where to start or what kind of information would be helpful.

Could you maybe put up a "template" post for us to know what to look for and how to correctly give all the info needed? I would think that it would be important to know when all the "planets" (moons?) and constellations cross true north and especially when any two intersect. And from reading through this thread I understand that the in-game date/time/season info is important to note. But what other things should we be looking for and/or report to help the cause? Is RL (Earth) time also important to note? Is current weather important to note (like when it starts/stops raining or snowing, should we look to see if there are any alignments present in the sky)?

Basically, can you give us a short list of things to look for and what to report if/when we see them?

 

I've started tracking data here.. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/nb-astronomy-201-spoilers.41889/ Just so all the data is collected in the opening posts so people don't need to sift through a thread to find it.

Mostly what we really need to figure out is the orbital speed of each of the 'planets'. The purple "dumbbell" for example takes 2 RL hours and passes N0 at Minight. RL time will simply be easier to track and can always be converted into game time later but tracking game dates gives will also give us a reference point.

The events we're particularly interested in are when planets past a constellation related to the virtue they represent. ie Red passing the Sword (valor), Chalice (honor) or Tear (Sacrifice). But especially Red/Sword, Green/Scales, Yellow/Heart/, Purple/Chalice, Blue/Hand & Orange/Tear and where in the sky they happen. White and Black I'm pretty sure can't be observed as the Ankh and Crook are in the southern set of constellations.

Also planetary alignments of course. Particularly when it's more than 2 planets.

 

Cool thread, Bowen.

+1