The Planets Rodrigo
Arnaude Kubiak
The Sun, with a diameter of almost 5 meters, is designed with around 2,000 brass pieces in the shape of a hand, representing private financial contributions to the project. The planets and their moons, reproduced using 3D technology and printing, float in steel and armored glass monoliths, and have an internal lighting system powered by solar panels that allows them to be illuminated at night. The scale in which this model is represented allows you to not only see the cultural heritage of Ciudad Rodrigo, but also offers a tour of emblematic locations in the region, such as the archaeological site of Siega Verde, extending as far as the Portuguese town of Vilar Formoso.
The association called Astrbriga has set up a project for building a scaled-down solar system in the district of Ciudad Rodrigo. The aims of this model, the first of its type ever set up in Spain, include science education and awareness-raising as well as boosting Ciudad Rodrigo's tourism.
GMV has joined in with this initiative, supporting its construction, making it the first major company to take part in the project directly; it is also the first private organization outside Ciudad Rodrigo to collaborate in the project.
This project will produce a scaled-down model of our planetary system. The sun, built up by about 2000 hand-made tin parts, will measure nearly 5 meters in diameter. The planets and their moons, reproduced in detail by 3D printing technology, will float in monoliths of steel and armored glass. A solar-panel-fed internal lighting system means it can be viewed at nighttime too.
GMV is helping to build the planet Mars, this collaboration being specifically recorded on the monolith in question. The company will also feature in the information panel to be placed under the sun, showing the names of all sponsoring organizations plus the private individuals participating in Astrbriga's collaborative citizen-financing campaign, launched under the name of Echa una mano (lend a hand).
The project has also received a subsidy from the Spanish Science and Technology Foundation (Fundacin Espaola para la Ciencia y la Tecnologa: FECYT), dependent on Spain's Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacin).
The scale model is not simply an end in itself, but much more, it is a tool for carrying out activities aimed at promoting the region as a tourist destination and developing educational and scientific outreach activities in the area.
Not only will it be the first permanent, large-scale, three-dimensional model in Spain, but it will also be, without doubt, one of the most ambitious and complete in the world. In the next few lines we will explain why.
The planets and their moons (15 in total) will float in monoliths comprising a corten steel base crowned by an armoured glass cube. An explanatory poster will be next to each monolith and there will be a sign showing where the other elements of the model are. The monoliths will be fitted with internal illumination for night visits.
We have developed a scale so that each planet, beyond Mars, is located in a village in the region. Jupiter will be found in Ivanrey, Saturn in Sanjuanejo and Uranus in Carpio de Azaba. We will be able to find Neptune right next to the interpretation centre of Siega Verde. Finally, Pluto will be in Portugal, near the Vilar Formoso train station.
You can visit or take a tour of the Solar System in several ways. The project is supported by the Association of Tourist Guides of Ciudad Rodrigo. In addition, four members of Astrbriga took part in a Starlight Foundation training course at the end of 2019 and are now recognised astronomy tour monitors. More members will be trained in 2020.
These resources facilitate the mixing and matching of different and complementary cultural and educational tourism activities, such as getting to know the historical heritage of Ciudad Rodrigo, the Fortification Tour or the palaeolithic site of Siega Verde (World Heritage Site), as well as daytime astronomical observations or night sky stargazing.
As outreach is important to us, we have a useful educational tool: people coming to see the elements of the system can use their smartphones to see the Solar System in augmented reality. Pointing the phone to an element, will show audiovisual information and animations on the screen, adding educational value to complement and add-value to the experience.
Astrotourism is growing in Spain and has the potential to provide new sources of income in the region. By the end of 2019, an estimated 800,000 people will have undertaken some form of astrotourism in Spain, that is, every year there are hundreds of thousands of tourists in Spain seeing the stars.
In fact, we are in contact with the Starlight Foundation, created by the Instituto de Astrofsica de Canarias and which, with another entity located in the United States, is the only institution that can certify the quality of the sky anywhere in the world. We are working with them and the city council of Ciudad Rodrigo to evaluate the possibility of certifying the region as a Star Park.
Outreach activities will be carried within the framework of this scale solar system project. Several astronomers have already been brought on board and have committed themselves to undertaking these outreach actions.
Astrbriga has the valuable support of Javier Rodriguez-Pacheco Martn, astrophysicist and professor at the University of Alcal. Javier, who grew up in Ciudad Rodrigo, is the principal investigator of the energetic particle detector of the Solar Orbiter launched from Cape Canaveral on 10 February 2020. When he found out about our activities, Javier contacted us. He is now an active member, honorary chair of the association and sponsor of the project.
Antonia Varela, researcher at the Instituto de Astrofsica de Canarias (IAC) and director of the Starlight Foundation, Sebastin Snchez Prieto, researcher at the University of Alcal who participated in several ESA and NASA missions, Fernando Buitrago, researcher from Salamanca who works at the Instituto de Astrofsica e Cincias do Espao in Lisbon, as well as Laura Delgado Martn, Diego Corrochano Fernndez, Pablo Herrero Teijn, Santiago Andrs Snchez and Camilo Ruiz Mndez, who are all members of the Department of Didactics of Mathematics and Experimental Sciences of the University of Salamanca and have expressed their willingness to do outreach work within the framework of the project.
We have the support of Valladolid Science Museum, the Spanish Federation of Astronomic Associations, the Europlanet Society, the journal Revista Astronoma, the Starlight Foundation, and the Association for the Teaching of Astronomy.
We are developing the project in close collaboration with Council of Ciudad Rodrigo, and with the Association of Tourist Guides of Ciudad Rodrigo as well as with three educational centres in the area currently committed to the project. The Aldea Social Centre, another non-profit association, is working with us closely.
Concerning the distortion, yes there is always some distortion anyway. If using the proper scale to display the moon for example, the distortion should not be too visible because the size of the moon on the sphere (sky dome) is relatively small.
Regarding the purpose of doing that is to display a planet on a sky dome object in the shader to take into account the blending of the light from the sky with the planet (light and shadow). I saw some Blender add-ons doing that. I believe they used the World shader instead of a sky dome. The mapping might be different to project a sprite with rotation.
Note that if the shadow was not overwriting the sky luminosity, that would be my first option. This saves time. Otherwise, with the sprite, I have to render the planet independently every time the planet position or the sun position changes.
I tried the upper part where you mentioned, EDIT: Forget what I said. Actually, the planet is repeated on both sides of the sphere . This node configuration does not work for me. I also changed the sky dome size to see if the size had an impact, but no change.
Concerning the other solution with the Lightpath for the shadow, that could work for day skies, but not for night skies where we need to have an opaque mask to mask the stars. At a certain degree, yes that could work under specific parameters.
Ok, here is the .blend file. You can see what is wrong there. I decided not to use the second empty cause it gives fewer problems adjusting the rotation of the first one instead.
planet_decal.blend (1.7 MB)
About the stars, in the night sky, you will need to block them first.
Second, the size of the sky dome matters. Yours is about 10 meters and mine is 600,000 meters. I tried to scale it down to something really lower before you sent me you test file, but that was not close.
When scaling up the sky dome, I had to lower the scale of the mapping node to values nearing 0. For example, 0.1, or 0.001 for a sky dome even bigger. Otherwise, the planet becomes smaller and smaller.
Other thoughts, your approach is interesting to avoid deformation when rotating the planet to the poles. However, I had a problem when scaling the planet to something really big (ex. the height of the screen). There are deformations. If I increase the size of the sky dome, the planet becomes smaller and the problem resolves. Either way, I have to keep the planet scale to something not too big. Therefore, it might not be the best solution for all scenes, but it is correct for small planets.
Characterology: Non-Emotive, Active and Secondary type or Emotive, non Active and Secondary type or sometimes Non-Emotive, non Active and Secondary type; it is a Phlegmatic, a Sentimental or an Empathic type
Here are some character traits from Olivia Rodrigo's birth chart. This description is far from being comprehensive but it can shed light on his/her personality, which is still interesting for professional astrologers or astrology lovers.
When interpreting a natal chart, the best method is to start gradually from general features to specific ones. Thus, there is usually a plan to be followed, from the overall analysis of the chart and its structure, to the description of its different character traits.
c80f0f1006