SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post

tomoose · 08-21-10, 06:13 PM

I've been reading the posts here about celestial navigation and as a complete novice at that art I was curious about how accurate the game would be (i.e. are the stars where they are supposed to be, when they're supposed to be).
I was on patrol off Formosa on 14 June 1943 and headed due South. I noted the time (0010hr, in-game) and took a screen shot (on the left below) of what stars I could see due South.
I then used Stellarium and placed my start point as Taipei, Taiwan (aka: Formosa back in the day) and trying to correct for the time discrepancy in-game I sought to duplicate the time/date from the game (i.e. Taipei is 8 hours ahead of GMT ergo I used 14 June 1943 at 0810hr). Below on the right is the Stellarium screenshot.
It's hard to see the stars in the SH4 shot due to the size restriction of the graphic and the fact that the starfields in SH4 are not as bright and as obvious as Stellarium (is there a modded brighter starfield out there,LOL?). If you look close you'll see the similarity of the constellations (I numbered some of them for clarity).
Result? Pretty damn close allowing for the fact that my sub isn't parked in Taipei harbour etc, LOL. Again, I say this as an easily impressed novice, LOL and perhaps one of the experts will correct me if I'm out to lunch here. Having said all that I'll have to find an online tutorial and figure out how this works!!!!

EDIT: I just noticed that Stellarium shows 13 June vice 14 June but I'm assuming that the stars would still be in the same general location 24hrs earlier or later so I believe I can retain my "wow, cool" sensation!?!?! yes? no? LOL

08-21-10, 06:13 PM	#69
tomoose Grey Wolf Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 930 Downloads: 23 Uploads: 0	Pretty darn cool! I've been reading the posts here about celestial navigation and as a complete novice at that art I was curious about how accurate the game would be (i.e. are the stars where they are supposed to be, when they're supposed to be). I was on patrol off Formosa on 14 June 1943 and headed due South. I noted the time (0010hr, in-game) and took a screen shot (on the left below) of what stars I could see due South. I then used Stellarium and placed my start point as Taipei, Taiwan (aka: Formosa back in the day) and trying to correct for the time discrepancy in-game I sought to duplicate the time/date from the game (i.e. Taipei is 8 hours ahead of GMT ergo I used 14 June 1943 at 0810hr). Below on the right is the Stellarium screenshot. It's hard to see the stars in the SH4 shot due to the size restriction of the graphic and the fact that the starfields in SH4 are not as bright and as obvious as Stellarium (is there a modded brighter starfield out there,LOL?). If you look close you'll see the similarity of the constellations (I numbered some of them for clarity). Result? Pretty damn close allowing for the fact that my sub isn't parked in Taipei harbour etc, LOL. Again, I say this as an easily impressed novice, LOL and perhaps one of the experts will correct me if I'm out to lunch here. Having said all that I'll have to find an online tutorial and figure out how this works!!!! EDIT: I just noticed that Stellarium shows 13 June vice 14 June but I'm assuming that the stars would still be in the same general location 24hrs earlier or later so I believe I can retain my "wow, cool" sensation!?!?! yes? no? LOL Last edited by tomoose; 08-21-10 at 06:26 PM.