Re: Time Scale for Maping the Sol System...

Nyrath the nearly wise wrote:

> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> > The square root of the Earth year, or about 19 days. Won't help Imre
> > since the BFM map only covers the Solar system out to Jupiter,
though.
>
>	  Well, the sad fact of the matter is that the solar system is
>	  made on two scales, one for the inner planets, one on the
outer.
>
>	  You will notice this if you look at any to scale diagram
>	  of the solar system.	The planets out to Mars are generally
>	  shown on a magnified insert.
> e.g.,
> http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/overview.html

Actually, I could do it with one scale, but it will be HUGE and mostly
empty.	For example, if I did it in 1mm = 0.1 au, I would need a
printable
area 36x36 inches to print it.	Not many people have access to plotters;
and
I really don't want to use 20 8.5x11 inch sheets of paper for the map...
 My
current prototype is scaled from the Sun to Jupiter in 3mm = 0.1 au, and
from Jupiter to Pluto in 3mm = 1 au.  This will print on 4 8.5x14 inch
sheets.  Each map is two 8.5x14 inch sheets.  Time scale is 2 month per
period inner scale, 20 month per period outer scale.  This is the best
compromise I can come up with (and I have to do only 148 orbital ticks
for
Pluto).  This makes the scale difference consistent.  Only Mercury and
Venus
are glaring problems, and my fix is to put in thier orbital tick marks
at
one per month and then move them two place per turn.

IAS

>
>
>	  There is a representative quote from THE SPACE BEYOND
>	  by John Campbell.
>
> "When the Lord made this system, he used two scales.	Maybe he started
> out with one, and didn't like the looks of the dinky little system he
> got - planets with diameters measured in thousands of miles, orbits
with
> diameters measured in millions.   Maybe he threw that scale away, and
> decided to start all over with something worth while.  The dust specks
> he had, he just forgot, and worked with a scale reading in billions
> instead of millions for the orbits, and he used tens of thousands
> of miles for planet diameters."