Community Atlas: Towards a Solar System for Nibirum
Wyvern
🖼️ 229 images Mapmaker
Having been tasked with constructing a Solar System for the Community Atlas world of Nibirum, only a few things were clearly in-place at the outset. Expressed preferences, coupled with the nature of Nibirum as depicted in the surface maps and descriptions of the world itself so far, showed Nibirum to be an Earth-like planet in size and nature, including with seasonal effects and climatic zones, illuminated by a single Sol-type Sun. As noted before, I'd opted for a simplified 360-day year for the planet more or less from the start too. One, probably Luna-type Moon, was preferred at least (Quenten), although perhaps with one or more additional moons (Dogtag). I assumed impressive astronomical phenomena like solar and lunar eclipses would be required additionally, to provide Nibirum with extra flavour and reality. The solar eclipse factor gave a first physical parameter beyond the planet, since Earth-type total solar eclipses could only happen if one of Nibirum's moons had the same apparent size as its Sun.
The "multiple moons" question led me back to an idea I've played with previously in RPG settings, a variable effect or object usually seen in one part of the sky, when visible at all, which can become a convenient plot-device or subject of game-omen lore. I settled on a group of small cometary objects loosely "trapped" around the leading (L4) Lagrange point on Nibirum's orbit. The L4 and L5 Lagrange points on a body's orbit are gravitationally stable points where relatively small objects can become caught for very long periods (centuries to millennia). Their own pre-existing space-motions mean the objects usually continue to orbit about that stable point, so are not necessarily fixed in one spot. Each point lies more or less at 60° from the Sun as seen from the main body - such as a planet - forming one apex of a conveniently equilateral triangle, with the planet and Sun at the other two apices. This means, handily, that the planet's distance from its Sun is the same as the distance to either of these two Lagrange points. One lies 60° ahead of the Sun as seen from, say, Nibirum, the other 60° behind the Sun. Thus objects around Nibirum's leading Lagrange point would be visible close to the ecliptic in the morning sky before sunrise. So these little comets quickly became the Phoenix Asteroids Dawn Heralds.
Leaving the L5, trailing, Lagrange point empty - at least of anything visible from the surface of Nibirum - opens the door to scholarly speculation on the planet by those seeking symmetry. So maybe the misty stars of the Dawn Heralds shine showing the approaching richness (or otherwise) of the magical-mystical potential into which Nibirum will soon be moving (for a 360-day year, 60° = 60 days on Nibirum). That there is no equivalent group of Dusk Heralds could suggest that potential has been exhausted by the passage of the magical world of Nibirum, and will take much time - most of a year, say - to recover.
However, fitting a second, much smaller moon into the trailing Lagrange point on the orbit of Nibirum's main Moon seemed an ideal reworked symmetry, which also gave the planet more than one natural satellite. (The Lagrange point geometry is the same for the lunar orbit. Just substitute "Nibirum" for "Sun", and "main Moon" for "Nibirum" and "the planet" in the earlier description.) Thus was born the Red Moon, always faithfully following the larger White Moon around the sky. Not quite Gloranthan, though with names ultimately inspired by that fantasy world, via the old "White Bear, Red Moon" board wargame name, later revised as "Dragon Pass". Still more perfectly, and following from typical Earthly precedents of similar celestial behaviour, this can also be called the Dog Moon. So naturally, another name for the White Moon had to be the Q Moon (only from Nibirum's southern hemisphere, however, and then only by societies that recognise the significance of the apparent pattern forming said letter on the lunar disc).
Then 'twas time to see what else lay beyond Nibirum. There are of course numerous random solar system generators available for RPG use. Given the experimental nature of the whole Night Sky for Nibirum concept, I decided on one I've had for a while, but never used this way before, Galactic Baroque's "Instant Universe" (available for purchase via DriveThru RPG). This proved interesting, if not quite so straightforward, rapid, or complete as its name might imply.
Needing a Sol-like Sun, and given there is some scholarly debate still as to whether Earth's Sun is spectral type G2 or G4, I went with a class G3 sun of standard stellar type for Nibirum. That means it has sunspots from time to time, and a solar wind able to produce polar and sometimes mid-latitude aurorae, just as we see from Earth. At one solar mass, it seemed sensible to also go with a similar size to our Sun, thus Nibirum's Sun has a diameter of 1,400,000 kilometres (Sol's is 1,392,530 km; if you want miles, divide by 1.6).
Dicing on the Instant Universe tables provided the System with seven planets, their distances from the Sun, masses, sizes, natural satellites and so forth. Some of these features were slightly reworked or rounded-off to give a Solar System a little less mathematically-challenging for GMs to work with, and a few parameters not given by Instant Universe were added. The obvious place to fit Nibirum into this scheme was as the third planet outwards from the Sun, because that had a rounded distance of 130 million km, not far from Earth's own circa 150 million km.
Next came a series of calculations to find out what of all this could be seen from Nibirum. The Sun has an angular size of 0.62° from the planet (Sol is about 0.5° as seen from Earth), so that decided what minimum angular size the Q Moon needed to be to produce total eclipses for Nibirum. A diameter of 2,130 km at 200,000 km from Nibirum did the trick, with an option (just like for Earth) to have the lunar orbit's centre be slightly offset from Nibirum's centre, so the lunar disc can be sometimes a little too small to completely block the Sun, producing not-quite-total annular eclipses occasionally. Random rolls came up with a Dog Moon size of 350 km, so showing a tiny, faint, red disc about 0.1° in diameter as seen from the planet. The human eye can resolve objects as small as roughly 0.07°, so this is quite near that limit. No other planet appears as anything other than a bright to extremely brilliant star to the unaided eye from Nibirum.
I wanted the Dawn Heralds to be quite easily visible sometimes from the planet, despite no individual object within them being brighter than a 3rd magnitude star - and that only very occasionally. So I decided on them appearing as a somewhat nebulous patch, with at most a few brighter (4th or 5th magnitude) star-like points within, which collectively should be roughly 0.5° to 1.5° across as seen from Nibirum. This equates to a physical cross-sectional area of around 1 to 3½ million km or so, an actual size easily achievable by one quite modest comet of the kind visible from Earth. Such an angular size is similar to that of the Earth-visible Pleiades star cluster of 9 or 10 mostly 4th and 5th magnitude stars in the constellation of Taurus the Bull, about 1° east-west by 0.7° north-south. Despite the relative faintness of its stars (only one is 3rd magnitude), this cluster is a surprisingly easy object for the unaided eye in even quite strong twilight. The proximity of the stars to one another seems to make it easier to spot than just their brightnesses alone might indicate, so the Dawn Heralds can have a similar ability to "tickle" the vision of Nibirese morning sky-watchers.
Choosing what to depict on maps from all this, and how to do so, was somewhat more of a challenge. As I don't have Cosmographer installed, mapping came down to a choice between two main Annuals, CA 22 (October 2008) Star Systems or CA 80 (August 2013) HighSpace Star Systems. CA80 has a greater range of planet symbol options, and I needed two ringed planets, but in the end, CA22 just won out, as despite it having no ringed planet symbols, it did have the option for dynamic lighting effects on its planetary discs. Moreover, CA22's Mapping Guide includes a short tutorial on creating your own planet symbols with said dynamic lighting.
Thus with help from the GIMP (with which I freely confess I am a veritable novice), and still more from the Great and Powerful Monsen (who kindly allowed me to extract from his rotating-world graphics, and provided new, FT-generated, north and south polar views of Nibirum for the purpose), I constructed a small group of dynamic-lighting Nibirum planet symbols for use with the Atlas, one set showing six views of just the world, the other half-dozen onto which I GIMP-added some airbrushed white cloudy shapes, to make it look a little more homely.
[Image_10639]
After further deliberation, I decided on one chart to show the relative sizes and orbital distances of the planets, and a set of maps to show the satellites and features for each planet.
The relative-scale Solar System chart:
[Image_10640]
The five planet and satellite description maps:
[Image_10641]
[Image_10642]
[Image_10643]
[Image_10644]
[Image_10645]
Many of the details provided on these maps (collected with some further notes in a PDF to accompany them in the Atlas) cannot be discerned from Nibirum. However, I decided to preserve everything that had been randomly rolled or otherwise chosen, partly for the sake of completeness, partly because in some fantasy settings, there are ways of travelling to other planets - the classic sailing ships of the stars in some earlier incarnations of D&D, for instance. It seemed thus a useful adjunct to include this information for any who might wish to explore the Nibirum system more fully.
After that, I constructed some extra charts to help RPG GMs especially keep track of what's visible, where and when in Nibirum's night sky, starting with those Moons.
The "multiple moons" question led me back to an idea I've played with previously in RPG settings, a variable effect or object usually seen in one part of the sky, when visible at all, which can become a convenient plot-device or subject of game-omen lore. I settled on a group of small cometary objects loosely "trapped" around the leading (L4) Lagrange point on Nibirum's orbit. The L4 and L5 Lagrange points on a body's orbit are gravitationally stable points where relatively small objects can become caught for very long periods (centuries to millennia). Their own pre-existing space-motions mean the objects usually continue to orbit about that stable point, so are not necessarily fixed in one spot. Each point lies more or less at 60° from the Sun as seen from the main body - such as a planet - forming one apex of a conveniently equilateral triangle, with the planet and Sun at the other two apices. This means, handily, that the planet's distance from its Sun is the same as the distance to either of these two Lagrange points. One lies 60° ahead of the Sun as seen from, say, Nibirum, the other 60° behind the Sun. Thus objects around Nibirum's leading Lagrange point would be visible close to the ecliptic in the morning sky before sunrise. So these little comets quickly became the Phoenix Asteroids Dawn Heralds.
Leaving the L5, trailing, Lagrange point empty - at least of anything visible from the surface of Nibirum - opens the door to scholarly speculation on the planet by those seeking symmetry. So maybe the misty stars of the Dawn Heralds shine showing the approaching richness (or otherwise) of the magical-mystical potential into which Nibirum will soon be moving (for a 360-day year, 60° = 60 days on Nibirum). That there is no equivalent group of Dusk Heralds could suggest that potential has been exhausted by the passage of the magical world of Nibirum, and will take much time - most of a year, say - to recover.
However, fitting a second, much smaller moon into the trailing Lagrange point on the orbit of Nibirum's main Moon seemed an ideal reworked symmetry, which also gave the planet more than one natural satellite. (The Lagrange point geometry is the same for the lunar orbit. Just substitute "Nibirum" for "Sun", and "main Moon" for "Nibirum" and "the planet" in the earlier description.) Thus was born the Red Moon, always faithfully following the larger White Moon around the sky. Not quite Gloranthan, though with names ultimately inspired by that fantasy world, via the old "White Bear, Red Moon" board wargame name, later revised as "Dragon Pass". Still more perfectly, and following from typical Earthly precedents of similar celestial behaviour, this can also be called the Dog Moon. So naturally, another name for the White Moon had to be the Q Moon (only from Nibirum's southern hemisphere, however, and then only by societies that recognise the significance of the apparent pattern forming said letter on the lunar disc).
Then 'twas time to see what else lay beyond Nibirum. There are of course numerous random solar system generators available for RPG use. Given the experimental nature of the whole Night Sky for Nibirum concept, I decided on one I've had for a while, but never used this way before, Galactic Baroque's "Instant Universe" (available for purchase via DriveThru RPG). This proved interesting, if not quite so straightforward, rapid, or complete as its name might imply.
Needing a Sol-like Sun, and given there is some scholarly debate still as to whether Earth's Sun is spectral type G2 or G4, I went with a class G3 sun of standard stellar type for Nibirum. That means it has sunspots from time to time, and a solar wind able to produce polar and sometimes mid-latitude aurorae, just as we see from Earth. At one solar mass, it seemed sensible to also go with a similar size to our Sun, thus Nibirum's Sun has a diameter of 1,400,000 kilometres (Sol's is 1,392,530 km; if you want miles, divide by 1.6).
Dicing on the Instant Universe tables provided the System with seven planets, their distances from the Sun, masses, sizes, natural satellites and so forth. Some of these features were slightly reworked or rounded-off to give a Solar System a little less mathematically-challenging for GMs to work with, and a few parameters not given by Instant Universe were added. The obvious place to fit Nibirum into this scheme was as the third planet outwards from the Sun, because that had a rounded distance of 130 million km, not far from Earth's own circa 150 million km.
Next came a series of calculations to find out what of all this could be seen from Nibirum. The Sun has an angular size of 0.62° from the planet (Sol is about 0.5° as seen from Earth), so that decided what minimum angular size the Q Moon needed to be to produce total eclipses for Nibirum. A diameter of 2,130 km at 200,000 km from Nibirum did the trick, with an option (just like for Earth) to have the lunar orbit's centre be slightly offset from Nibirum's centre, so the lunar disc can be sometimes a little too small to completely block the Sun, producing not-quite-total annular eclipses occasionally. Random rolls came up with a Dog Moon size of 350 km, so showing a tiny, faint, red disc about 0.1° in diameter as seen from the planet. The human eye can resolve objects as small as roughly 0.07°, so this is quite near that limit. No other planet appears as anything other than a bright to extremely brilliant star to the unaided eye from Nibirum.
I wanted the Dawn Heralds to be quite easily visible sometimes from the planet, despite no individual object within them being brighter than a 3rd magnitude star - and that only very occasionally. So I decided on them appearing as a somewhat nebulous patch, with at most a few brighter (4th or 5th magnitude) star-like points within, which collectively should be roughly 0.5° to 1.5° across as seen from Nibirum. This equates to a physical cross-sectional area of around 1 to 3½ million km or so, an actual size easily achievable by one quite modest comet of the kind visible from Earth. Such an angular size is similar to that of the Earth-visible Pleiades star cluster of 9 or 10 mostly 4th and 5th magnitude stars in the constellation of Taurus the Bull, about 1° east-west by 0.7° north-south. Despite the relative faintness of its stars (only one is 3rd magnitude), this cluster is a surprisingly easy object for the unaided eye in even quite strong twilight. The proximity of the stars to one another seems to make it easier to spot than just their brightnesses alone might indicate, so the Dawn Heralds can have a similar ability to "tickle" the vision of Nibirese morning sky-watchers.
Choosing what to depict on maps from all this, and how to do so, was somewhat more of a challenge. As I don't have Cosmographer installed, mapping came down to a choice between two main Annuals, CA 22 (October 2008) Star Systems or CA 80 (August 2013) HighSpace Star Systems. CA80 has a greater range of planet symbol options, and I needed two ringed planets, but in the end, CA22 just won out, as despite it having no ringed planet symbols, it did have the option for dynamic lighting effects on its planetary discs. Moreover, CA22's Mapping Guide includes a short tutorial on creating your own planet symbols with said dynamic lighting.
Thus with help from the GIMP (with which I freely confess I am a veritable novice), and still more from the Great and Powerful Monsen (who kindly allowed me to extract from his rotating-world graphics, and provided new, FT-generated, north and south polar views of Nibirum for the purpose), I constructed a small group of dynamic-lighting Nibirum planet symbols for use with the Atlas, one set showing six views of just the world, the other half-dozen onto which I GIMP-added some airbrushed white cloudy shapes, to make it look a little more homely.
[Image_10639]
After further deliberation, I decided on one chart to show the relative sizes and orbital distances of the planets, and a set of maps to show the satellites and features for each planet.
The relative-scale Solar System chart:
[Image_10640]
The five planet and satellite description maps:
[Image_10641]
[Image_10642]
[Image_10643]
[Image_10644]
[Image_10645]
Many of the details provided on these maps (collected with some further notes in a PDF to accompany them in the Atlas) cannot be discerned from Nibirum. However, I decided to preserve everything that had been randomly rolled or otherwise chosen, partly for the sake of completeness, partly because in some fantasy settings, there are ways of travelling to other planets - the classic sailing ships of the stars in some earlier incarnations of D&D, for instance. It seemed thus a useful adjunct to include this information for any who might wish to explore the Nibirum system more fully.
After that, I constructed some extra charts to help RPG GMs especially keep track of what's visible, where and when in Nibirum's night sky, starting with those Moons.
Comments
Actually, he have it correct. You are confusing diameter for circumference. Easy mistake to make.
This must have taken you a lifetime to work out.
Great maps, Wyvern. VERY impressive
As a side note, I've now started using the new 3.81 features in the atlas, which means that certain features in the navigation bars in the fcw won't work properly unless you have installed the update (the maps themselves will still work fine though).
Solar System
Inner Planets
Yellowstar
Goldenstar
Timekeeper
Trickster
Quenten, I feel maybe you've followed the advice from the "Men In Black" movies a little too literally; should be "pi", not "pie"... ;D Not quite; I only started in early February! But in another sense, sort-of, as astronomy has been a major element in my life since I was very young.
As for the maps, well, much is, as always, down to the power of CC3+.
As the experiment to randomly create a night sky map for Nibirum had worked so well, I decided it would be interesting to see if a similar approach would also generate a visible disc for the larger of Nibirum's natural satellites, the White or Q Moon. The idea was to construct something that looked a little like, but in detail was distinct from, what we see on Earth's Moon.
Examining photos and drawings of our Moon as an initial guide suggested a series of different-sized, probably blurred, circular patches randomly distributed over a larger planet-disc background would work, likely with some minor adjustments and additions. It seemed implausible such a random distribution would give a clear enough "Q"-shaped patterning, for instance, while multiple linear rays extending from a few specific crater-spots could not be usefully applied this way. The idea was to produce a lunar disc view such as could be seen with the unaided eye, so much fine detail was not needed, especially given that Nibirum's lunar disc averages only 0.62° across (Earth's Moon has a mean angular diameter of about 0.5°). This is of a size that for most people, the tip of their smallest finger held at arm's length from the eye will very easily hide it completely.
Following these image examinations, coupled with viewings of the actual lunar disc, I estimated the following round patches could be used to loosely reproduce it. The descriptive names reflect the old terms for Earth's lunar features, not the physical nature of the features themselves:
* 6 to 8 "oceans" or "seas", the largest darker areas, each roughly 1/3 the visible disc's diameter.
* 12 to 15 "lakes", smaller-sized dark areas, each about 1/10 the disc's diameter.
* 10 to 12 "bright lakes", comparable in size to the lakes, but lighter in colour than the general surface.
* 20 to 30 "craters", dark patches each about 1/35 the size of the disc's diameter.
* 60 to 80 "small craters", half each of light and dark coloured patches, somewhat smaller than the craters, at around 1/60 the disc's diameter each.
* 6 to 10 "ray craters", light crater patches each approximately 1/30 the disc's diameter, with a series of radial lines extending from about the middle of each over variable distances.
Constructing the White Moon Map
Beginning with one of my earlier CC3+ Star Maps, as this already had the necessary varicolor circle symbols loaded (from the Symbols > Maps > Filled > Geometry.FSC CC3+ standard set), I drew a new Background circle in a suitable pale cream colour (number 140), 200 Map Units in diameter. Nibirum's White Moon has a diameter of 2,130 km, so each map unit is about 10 km (10.65 km for pedants!). I added an Edge Fade, Inner effect to the Background Sheet, with a 15 Map Unit width, inner opacity 90%, outer opacity 100%, to help make the disc seem a little less "flat".
I then created a Mask Sheet, drew a solid rectangle rather larger than the Background lunar disc onto it, copied said disc onto the Mask Sheet, and carried out a Multipoly command on both Mask Sheet polygons, to create a rectangle with a moon-disc-sized hole in its centre. This was to hide the coloured patches still to be added, whose edges would extend beyond the circle of the White Moon's disc.
After this, I set up a series of more new Sheets, and randomly populated each with circles of appropriately different colours and sizes using the Symbols in Area command panel, each Sheet with different effects applied to it. This took quite a degree of trial and error, with some post facto tweaking to get the look "right". Having also set the task that with the Moon's southern limb uppermost, a roughly "Q"-shaped pattern had to be apparent across the lunar disc, some further manual adjustment of features was necessary, though this was kept to the minimum possible. A series of colour 142, width 0.5 lines of varying length was added to the ray craters by hand too, as these all had to originate roughly in one spot for each ray crater.
The only symbols used were the unedged circles in all cases, and after setting the Symbols in Area Layout Pattern commands to "Random" and "Default", only the % Size at Edge, % Size at Center, and the four Separation distances, Horizontal Distance, Vertical Distance, H Random Distance and V Random Distance, were further altered in each case. The various features thus arrived at per Sheet were as follows:
* SYMBOLS, OCEANS Sheet: Circle colour = 253. Both % Sizes = 50, all 4 Distances = 20. 7 circles created. Blur effect of 2 Map Units size.
* SYMBOLS, LAKES Sheet: Circle colour = 253. Both % Sizes = 15, all 4 Distances = 5.0. 16 circles created. Blur effect of 2 Map Units size.
* SYMBOLS, BRIGHT LAKES Sheet: Circle colour = 142. Both % Sizes = 15, all 4 Distances = 5.0. 14 circles created. Blur effect of 4.5 Map Units size.
* SYMBOLS, CRATERS Sheet: Circle colour = 252. Both % Sizes = 5, all 4 Distances = 2.5. 30 circles created. Blur effect of 2 Map Units size.
* SYMBOLS, SMALL CRATERS Sheet: Circle colour = 252. Both % Sizes = 3, all 4 Distances = 2.0. 39 circles created. Blur effect of 1 Map Unit size, Transparency effect set to 75% opacity.
* SYMBOLS, BRIGHT CRATERS Sheet: Circle colour = 142. Both % Sizes = 3, all 4 Distances = 2.0. 38 circles created. Blur effect of 2 Map Units size.
* SYMBOLS, RAY CRATERS Sheet: Circle colour = 142. Both % Sizes = 6, all 4 Distances = 75. 6 circles created. Blur effect of 1.5 Map Units size.
To help further break-up some of the shapes arrived at, I also added one extra Sheet:
* SYMBOLS, LARGE BRIGHT LAKES Sheet: Circle colour = 140. Both % Sizes = 30, all 4 Distances = 100. 9 circles created. Blur effect of 3 Map Units size. To this Sheet, an extra two identical circles were added, and a couple of the randomly-placed ones were moved slightly as well, to better enhance the "Q" appearance.
With a title and two text lines to cover scale and direction, that was it!
[Image_10649]
This mechanic seems to nicely generate such a simple visual impression of a small lunar disc, from which greater detail could be created separately if a closer view, or even surface exploration, might be possible - in a fantasy or science-fiction RPG setting, for example. Additional items could be shown too if required, with the colouring, sizes, densities and distributions of the rounded patches endlessly amended to whatever appearance was preferred.
Such new worlds could then be converted into Symbols for use in other CC3+ drawings. I turned this White Moon drawing into one, following the procedure in the CA22 Mapping Guide (Oct 2008, Star Systems), as I'd done earlier with the Nibirum planetary discs, to add both a dynamic lighting and a flat lighting version to the Planet Nibirum symbol set in the Atlas.
And so to the Red Moon...
As the Red Moon is only about 1/6 the size of the White, I reduced the potential number of surface features to be placed randomly upon it considerably, to:
* 2 to 4 "lakes";
* 4 or 5 "craters"; and
* 8 to 10 "small craters".
Beginning with the CC3+ template already prepared for the White Moon, so the 200-Map-Unit diameter Background disc would now have a scale of 1 Map Unit = 1.75 km, I changed its colour to a dull red (colour 163) while retaining the same Edge Fade, Inner effect as on the original. The surface-feature Symbol Sheets were reduced to three, and populated with colour 162 circles thus:
* SYMBOLS, LAKES Sheet: Both % Sizes set to 90 and all 4 Distances to 70, creating 3 circles on the disc, to which a 4 Map Unit Blur effect was added (as also to the remaining two Red Moon Symbol Sheets).
* SYMBOLS, CRATERS Sheet: Both % Sizes = 50, all 4 Distances = 100. 5 circles created.
* SYMBOLS, SMALL CRATERS Sheet: Both % Sizes = 30, all 4 Distances = 100. 9 circles created.
While the final result looks even more blurry and under-detailed than the White Moon, as it was to represent such a tiny object in the Nibirum night sky, only 0.1° across, that was the impression being sought, so this seems reasonable overall:
[Image_10650]
Again, two new Symbols, with dynamic and flat lighting, were prepared for the Red Moon, and added to the Planet Nibirum symbol set.
Next, a chart to help determine where the Moons can be seen in the sky from Nibirum was devised. This further allows the identification of when eclipses can happen (and transits - the Red Moon being far too small to conceal the Sun's disc completely), something which also has implications for Nibirum's tides.
[Image_10651]
The process for using this chart is quite involved, so a descriptive text and a PDF to accompany it in the Atlas were drafted, to which latter was added a printable, apparent-size, scale diagram for Nibirum's Moons and Sun compared with Earth's:
[Image_10652]
The scale diagram needs printing-out at actual size for best use, hence the 1 cm scale boxes with internal cross-lines at 0.5 cm. If held at arm's length from the eye for most people, the objects shown will be seen at their correct apparent angular sizes. As a guide, for angles up to circa 25° or so, 1 centimetre at arm's length from the eye is roughly 1° in angular size. Note that this diagram was NOT constructed using CC3+, so is not given in the FSC files concerning the Nibirran Moons, only in the PDF.
As for constructing the chart and markers, the Nibirum north pole symbol image was set-up with concentric ring-lines surrounding it, each track-ring's area then shaded using a multipoly pair of filled solid circles, and labelled. Thankfully, CC3+ did much of the "heavy lifting" involved, with features like its Rotational Copy and Trim to Entity commands for the radial lines at different angles and of different lengths. For the markers, only the two Node signs had to be freshly hand-drawn, as disappointingly few fonts include them as standard, never mind those in the Atlas Fonts List! The arrowed arcs, incidentally, were just arcs with separate hand-drawn triangles appended, as for some reason the CC3+ "arrowed line" commands often produce quite untidy-looking arrowheads, no matter how much you tweak them!
Red Moon
White Moon
Eclipse Chart
Speechless.
And now it's time for - Solar System Part 3 (shorter piece this time!)...
Having dealt with Nibirum's moons and their various orbital complexities, the next step in the Solar System description and RPG access process was to look further out into space. This led into the Nibirum Planet Calculator Chart to help visualise where and when the different planets in the Nibirum System may be seen in the sky.
[Image_10665]
This used the same concentric-ring layout already designed for the Eclipse Calculator, though now with the extra difficulty of trying to show all the planetary motions using an identical 30-day time-step - compare the Firebird and Trickster track spaces especially! This made for quite small Markers too, to which were added CA22 and Planet Nibirum.FSC symbols, plus a Dawn Heralds Marker was specially drawn in CC3+. Even for all its diminutive size, the Trickster Marker can't be fitted usefully onto just one space of its track though, unless you make it so it stands up instead of lying flat on the printed Chart...
Again, accompanying text and PDF descriptions were prepared for the Atlas explaining how to make best use of all this. The PDF version also includes the following small non-CC3+ graphic to help show what will be where as seen from any Nibirum track space:
[Image_10666]
Although the Planet Calculator Chart could be considered as concluding the original premise to construct and explain a basic solar system set-up for Nibirum, I thought it would be useful to add a few other elements, and follow-through on some of the points the process had raised. This concept was the first of those, where lines showing the two Tropics and two Midnight Sun lines (all derived from Nibirum's ecliptic being angled at 25° to its equator) were added to the four equatorial views of Nibirum from the Planet Nibirum symbols set in the Atlas.
[Image_10677]
A suitable graticule from CA87 (Mar 2014) Map Projection Templates was added as a basis for this. Its 10° latitude lines were retained, though only the central longitude one was kept from the group, as a reference indication of the rotational pole's axis. The four Solar Circle lines were then added, with a few further appearance tweaks, and some labels. As usual, notes on what the lines represent were prepared as part of the PDF and text descriptions to accompany this final segment of materials for the Atlas.
Nibirum's Geomagnetism
During the Solar System creation process, Nibirum was allocated a magnetic field quite like Earth's, and the System's Sun was similarly determined as being able to emit materials capable of generating auroral activity on Nibirum, when those materials should interact with the planet's magnetism and outer atmosphere. A dipolar magnetic field for Nibirum also means magnetic compasses, from simple suspended magnetic lodestone form through to much more sophisticated devices, will function much as they do on Earth, for navigation.
Detailing this is hampered by how poorly-understood is Earth's magnetism, something again explored in the Atlas' PDF and text notes that include the Solar Circles. I opted for keeping things relatively straightforward for easier RPG use on Nibirum, so, while Earth has two different pairs of magnetic poles (read the notes!), Nibirum has just one pair instead. These are angled at 10° from the rotational axis in a diametric offset (so the line between them passes through the planet's centre), surfacing based on a randomly-rolled longitude direction. These points were added to the two Planet Nibirum polar symbols, along with zones of auroral frequency based on the statistical values determined for Earth. Again, I used suitable graticules from the CA87 Map Projection Templates package as the basis for both the latitude and auroral-zone lines, adjusted and adapted as necessary, with some labelling.
[Image_10678]
Those oft-mentioned Atlas notes also describe something of what may be seen during typical polar and mid-latitude auroral displays from Earth, for GMs to use with Nibirum.
More Events for Nibirum's Night Sky
While these are not things that can be charted or mapped, to add further interest, not to say RPG plot-devices, to Nibirum's night sky, I went on to add some discussion regarding three more topics to that Solar Circles & Geomagnetics Atlas notes package - Comets, beyond the minor ones of the Dawn Heralds group; Meteors or Shooting-Stars of various kinds, along with sky-fallen Meteorites; and Novae, new stars of up to exceptional brilliance.
And that, as they say, is that (at least for the basic Nibirum Solar System model)!
Nibirum Geomagnetics
Nibrium Solar Circles
Un-$%^&ing-believable!
This is truly awesome. When I get time, I'll read through the text properly so I can comprehend it all but this is amazing work. if I only had 10% of your skill and creativity I'd be a very happy cartographer!
No wonder you're a master mapper!
Thanks very much @jmabbott !
As I said earlier in this topic though, CC3+ did most of the heavy lifting; I just guided things in what seemed an appropriate direction for the mapping.
First time seeing these - -nicely done!!!!