Stellarium Scripts.

[Paul M]

As is often the case, a thread here on SGL started me on a train of thought...

A  discussion about a tour to this year's Total Eclipse in South America got me thinking about the next deep solar eclipse as seen from home. I knew there was one in the next decade and researched it here (an excellent resource): http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2026_GoogleMapFull.html?Lat=54.73640&Lng=-2.75216&Zoom=8&LC=1

On 12th August 2026 a deep eclipse will be visible before sunset. I further investigated my local circumstances with Stellarium and got to thinking about making a script to showcase the view from my location. I know nothing about scripting so looked at the scripts that come packaged with Stellarium to see if they made sense. Some of the script was self explanatory, some less so.

The scripting editor within Stellarium can be accessed by pressing F12 . Given a lack of Stellarium scripts I see being proffered on SGL I'm thinking it's not a popular pastime but it's something I've been threatening to have a go at for some time.

I decided that re-engineering an existing script would be the best bet and chose solar_eclipse.ssc written by Matthew Gates, who deserves full credit for my limited success! I changed the stuff I could work out and also borrowed some lines from a number of Alex Wolf's scripts (as included with Stellarium).

My method wasn't pretty!  I hacked and hacked and cut and pasted and ran my script a million times (when it would run). It was rather like pouring a bucket of amino acids in a pond and waiting for an ape to emerge 

There is a guide: https://stellarium.org/doc/0.19/scripting.html , which maybe makes much sense to experienced coders but it's very, very hard going for my poor old brain.

Anyway, after some hours I got what I was looking for and I'm pleased with the result...so far. I decided it would be nice to make a video of it but to do so I had to employ a Google Chrome plug-in that uploads video captures to my Google Drive (the XBox video capture feature in W10 requires hardware that my computer doesn't have). I don't have a YouTube channel and don't want to start one. So, here is the world premier of my Stellarium Script. It won't hot-link so it's hopefully a clickable link. Let me know if it doesn't work!! 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YH53mSRVxluV4iACKElftIFMcqEaVQny/view?usp=sharing