Stellarium

Is view of Mars ~12 hours off?

Asked by Hal Barwood

How good is your display of Mars longitude and Phobos & Deimos positions in extreme zoom? I want to see what view Mars currently presents to an Earth-bound observer. The NASA MER website has the Mars features just about 12 hours out of sync with Stellarium's. Who is right?

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Matthew Gates (matthew-porpoisehead) said : 		#1

Probably not Stellarium.

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Bogdan Marinov (daggerstab) said : 		#2

I'm not sure which feature of the Mars Exploration Rover site you mean, but I compared Stellarium to this:
http://observatory.tamu.edu/tools.html ("Mars from Earth")
And Stellarium's rendering appears to agree.

Make sure that your computer's time zone settings are correct. For Phobos and Deimos, make sure that light speed simulation is turned on (in the Sky and viewing options window).

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Hal Barwood (nurabsal) said : 		#3

My time zone settings are correct for Stellarium. Sure enough, the TAMU physics lab and Stellarium agree on my machine in my location, so that's 2 out of 3.

The NASA Mars Exploration Rover site has 2 little Flash apps that show their idea of time at the Spirit and Opportunity locations, and these times look to be ~12 hours off from Stellarium and TAMU. The site is here --> http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

I've asked the same question of the MER webmaster, and if I get a response, I'll post it.

Thanks for pointing me to TAMU's Physics Observatory...

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