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Upsilon Andromedae Planetary System

Filename: Upsilon_Andromedae_V1_0.zip
Author: Robert Fowler
Type: Scenery
Size: 1,234kb

File Description:
This star is a type F8V, and is about 44 lightyears away.

The moons in this system are fictional. Where there was data available, like mass and semimajor axis, Robert Fowler used it for this system. For the unknown factors, he just made a guess. For now, Robert borrowed the planet and moon textures from existing ones in Orbiter. An F type star's color is close to a G type, so the default star color is close enough.

Review:
As you know Orbiter simulates our solar system with accurate physics. This has been viewed as a limitation by some because you can't fly throughout the universe. As an amateur astronomer the thought of choosing an object and flying to it sounds desirable to me too. I mean think about it. Your spaceship entering into an open star cluster, the Ring Nebula or even the Great Orion Nebula. There is a whole universe of wondrous objects besides planets that could be explored.

Lets come back to earth for a minute. Even at light speeds your spaceship would take years to reach the closest stars systems. This is not practical if you want to keep Orbiter realistic. This of course would be too boring without time compression. But Orbiters solution to this is not a universe expanded out beyond our solar system, not even the local group.

Yet Dr. Martin has come up with a workable solution. Simple build your own solar system as an addon. Just load it in and your there. You can't fly to it from our home system, but why do you need to. As stated above it would be a slow flight even with compressed time. Nothing really to gain. However with this solution we can add as many systems as you wish.

This is just what Robert Fowler has done with the Upsilon Andromedae Planetary System. This is a beautiful system which is great fun to explore. Surprisingly Upsilon Andromedae is a small download for a complete Planetary System. None the less this is a worth while addition for Orbiter.

Related Links:
Blue Mars
Terra System
 

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