1 <sect1 id="tool-solarsys">
2 <title>Solar System Viewer</title>
3 <indexterm><primary>Tools</primary>
4 <secondary>Solar System Viewer</secondary>
9 The Solar System Viewer
13 <imagedata fileref="solarsystem.png" format="PNG"/>
16 <phrase>Solar System Viewer</phrase>
22 This tool displays a model of our solar system as seen from
23 above. The Sun is drawn as a yellow dot in the center of the
24 plot, and the orbits of the planets are drawn as ellipses with
25 the correct shapes and orientations. The current position
26 of each planet along its orbit is drawn as a colored dot, along
27 with a name label. The display can be zoomed in and out with
28 the <keycap>+</keycap> and <keycap>-</keycap> keys, and the
29 display can be recentered with the arrow keys, or by
30 double-clicking anywhere in the window with the mouse. You can
31 also center on a planet with the <keycap>0–9</keycap> keys
32 (<keycap>0</keycap> is the Sun; <keycap>9</keycap> is Pluto).
33 If you center on a planet, it will be tracked as time passes in
37 The Solar System Viewer has its own clock, independent of the
38 clock in the main &kstars; window. There is a timestep control
39 widget here, similar to the one in the main window's toolbar.
40 However, this control defaults to a timestep of 1 day (so that
41 the motions of the planets can be seen), and it starts out with
42 the clock paused when the tool is opened.
46 The current model used for Pluto's orbit is only good for dates
47 within about 100 years of the present date. If you let the Solar
48 System clock advance beyond this range, you will see Pluto behave
49 very strangely! We are aware of this issue, and will try to
50 improve Pluto's orbit model soon.