|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Celestia & faster than light travel
Hi. In Celestia, if you travel between stars then you see other stars
moving (relative to your position) past you on all sides like to often do in science fiction movies and TV shows. Apart from the fact that your point of view is moving orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light, is the way the stars appear to move realistic? Thanks in anticipation, Ross-c |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
wrote:
Hi. In Celestia, if you travel between stars then you see other stars moving (relative to your position) past you on all sides like to often do in science fiction movies and TV shows. Apart from the fact that your point of view is moving orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light, is the way the stars appear to move realistic? Thanks in anticipation, Ross-c There are some realistic simulations of the appearance of the sky during relativistic motion (not quite superluminal!), the so-called starbow, at http://quasar.cc.osaka-kyoiku.ac.jp/...SF/starbow.htm The Greek characters are recognizable (I don't get the Japanese ones...). Beta is the fraction of the speed of light (with respect to the mean rest frame of the local stars) with which the observer is moving, in this case toward Orion. Aberration bunches the stars ahead of you, and the ones most directly in front are significantly blueshifted as well. I thought for a while about doing a more complete calculation including the UV and IR appearance of the sky, diffuse Milky Way as well as stars - then, on a deadline, decided that wasn't going to happen... Bill Keel |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
|
#4
|
|||
|
|||
William C. Keel wrote:
wrote: Hi. In Celestia, if you travel between stars then you see other stars moving (relative to your position) past you on all sides like to often do in science fiction movies and TV shows. Apart from the fact that your point of view is moving orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light, is the way the stars appear to move realistic? Thanks in anticipation, Ross-c There are some realistic simulations of the appearance of the sky during relativistic motion (not quite superluminal!), the so-called starbow, at http://quasar.cc.osaka-kyoiku.ac.jp/...SF/starbow.htm The Greek characters are recognizable (I don't get the Japanese ones...). Beta is the fraction of the speed of light (with respect to the mean rest frame of the local stars) with which the observer is moving, in this case toward Orion. Aberration bunches the stars ahead of you, and the ones most directly in front are significantly blueshifted as well. I thought for a while about doing a more complete calculation including the UV and IR appearance of the sky, diffuse Milky Way as well as stars - then, on a deadline, decided that wasn't going to happen... Bill Keel Whats it supposed to do? for me its just a static page with a bunch of garbage on it. Eric |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Hi Sam,
Sam Wormley wrote: wrote: Hi. In Celestia, if you travel between stars then you see other stars moving (relative to your position) past you on all sides like to often do in science fiction movies and TV shows. Apart from the fact that your point of view is moving orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light, is the way the stars appear to move realistic? Thanks in anticipation, Ross-c A relativistic observer would notice pronounce geometric distortion of her field of view... light sources would be read and blue shifted in some cases, well outside the range of human vision. That's true for the case of travel near the velocity of light. But, as I'm sure you know, there can be no realistic representation of the stars as seen when moving at faster than light speed because there is no physics to describe it. In fact, the physics is quite clear on the central point: it isn't possible! So there really is no answer to the OP's question due to the fact that moving faster than the speed of light isn't something that can just be ignored. Clear skies, Greg -- Greg Crinklaw Astronomical Software Developer Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m) SkyTools: http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html Observing: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html Comets: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets.html To reply have a physician remove your spleen |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Ross wrote:
Hi. In Celestia, if you travel between stars then you see other stars moving (relative to your position) past you on all sides like to often do in science fiction movies and TV shows. Apart from the fact that your point of view is moving orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light, is the way the stars appear to move realistic? As others have pointed out, there's no way, really, to say "Forgetting that you're moving faster than light..." because that changes everything. So I'm going to assume your question to be, assuming that the speed of light is infinite (or at least much faster than the speed at which you're moving in Celestia), is the simulation realistic? It's been a while since I've seen this (and I think it was a demo), but I believe the answer is yes--it is realistic assuming an infinite speed of light. -- Brian Tung The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/ Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/ The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/ My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Thanks to everyone who replied on this thread.
I note the point that the problem of moving faster than light cannot be ignored. In a discussion I'd been having, it was claimed that the stars are so far apart that if you moved from one star to another you wouldn't see stars whizzing past you at high speed like you do in Celestia and in many science fiction movies and television programs. However arguing that one viewpoint that breaks the laws of physics is somehow "correct" and another viewpoing that breaks the laws of physics is "incorrect" doesn't really make sense. Cheers, Ross-c |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
New Physics Based on Yoon's Universal Atomic Model | newedana | Astronomy Misc | 236 | May 2nd 06 09:25 AM |
NASA HISTORY COMPUTER STOLDEN --- UNIVERSAL DATABASE ON A CHIP .... | zetasum | History | 1 | February 19th 05 07:08 PM |
Can't get out of the universe "My crew will blow it up"!!!!!!!!!!! | zetasum | History | 0 | February 5th 05 12:06 AM |
Light pollution. Was: Exterior House Lighting | N9WOS | Amateur Astronomy | 26 | February 10th 04 05:03 AM |
UFO Activities from Biblical Times (Long Text) | Kazmer Ujvarosy | UK Astronomy | 3 | December 25th 03 11:41 PM |