On 5/5/2017 6:04 PM, Bald Eagle wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aolcom> wrote:
>
>> You do ask awkward questions. ;-)
>
> It's a talent I've honed through decades of constant practice.   ;)
>
>


They say practice makes perfect.

>> Best for what application? Remember when using compound gear chains the
>> ratios are multiplied.
>> This is mostly from memory. I only did mechanical engineering at high
>> school and that was a long time ago. So that is what I meant about doing
>> it on my fingers. One step/gear at a time. ;-)
>> If I have not answered your question. Ask again.
>
> I was sort of thinking along the lines of "given the gears available" - how
> would one calculate which gear combination to use that would most accurately
> reflect a given orbital period.  Likely just a novelty, so if Jupiter's 67th
> moon is a day off once every year, then it's likely no one would know.
> Hell, I didn't even know Jupiter had ***67 Moons*** until I took a look over at
> http://www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/planets_table.html
>

Well keep that thinking to yourself, please. :)
My head is spinning as much as when I think of infinity.
I think you are answering your own question.


> :O
>
> As for Scale, scale, scale ....   yeah.   I had been dabbling with doing a solar
> eclipse scene, and it really drives home the concept of numbers being
> "astronomical".  I did a quick edit to do a sort of top-down view of the
> planetary orbits, and --- there definitely needed to be some scaling UP of the
> planet sizes and scaling DOWN of the orbital radii, just so that there was shot
> in Hell of seeing a point of light on the screen where a planet ought to be.
>

The only way to do it is to fake it. Less than the size of a pixel is no 
use whatsoever.


Have you tried to put a camera on, say, the Earth and look at the Moon. 
It is not easy.

A couple of years ago Thomas had a ring world project. It looked really 
good. When I tried it, it was too hard.


> It _really_ gets one thinking about how the heck they actually see things that
> "small", THAT far away and even have some notion about what the rest of the
> galaxy looks like....
>

Fortunately we can change scales the way a trombone slides up the scale.
(Zenish thought for the day.)

> I've also disambiguated rotation and revolution.  :)
>
> In my dabbling, I was wondering if the sun has a tilt to the plane of the solar
> system, and
> do any of the celestial objects have a secondary rotation - a wobble, if you
> will, of their primary axis of rotation?
> In POV-Ray terms, I guess that would be a rotate y, rotate z, and then a second
> rotate y (looking top - down at the N pole).
>
>
> ......and I'm back off to work.
>
>
Leaving me with my head spinning. Thanks.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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