Re: Space Geography

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On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 1:16 AM, Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> TomB: That gives me a reasonably idea for Earth's system. What I'm
sort of
> wondering is if this sort of data is readily available from an online
> catalog
> of any sort. (By readily, I also mean 'without mind bending math tools
to
> apply to the data').
>
>
Hi, Long-Time Lurker here,

For this task might I suggest the free software Celestia (
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/).

It's a really nice astronomy software tool that lets you zoom around the
solar system, and a bunch of known exo-planets (although I'm not sure if
they're keeping up with the current bloom of exo-planet detections). 
It's
an excellent tool for realistic roleplaying games.  You can also
download
add-ons for all sorts of fictional settings.

I used it for a game and rewrote the constellations file so that it
would
make a map of FTL routes.  Then you could zoom way out and get a nice 3D
sense of your empire.

Randy Wolfmeyer