The StellarMate Plus Manual
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thick white line, and its name is added to the listbox at the lower right. Any
objects that were already present are plotted with a thinner red curve. You can
choose which object is plotted with the thick white curve by highlighting its name
in the listbox.
These curves show the objects' Altitude (angle above the horizon) as a function
of time. When a curve passes from the lower half to the upper half, the object has
risen; when it falls back to the lower half, it has set. For example, in the
screenshot, the minor planet Quaoar is setting at around 15:00 local time, and is
rising at about 04:00 local time.
The plot can be easily zoomed and panned using the mouse. The zooming level
can be adjusted using the mouse scroll wheel. When the plot is zoomed out, the
zooming level will be automatically limited to a default minimum value, such as
the axesʼ ranges are able to cover the entire plot (i.e. on vertical axis, the
maximum altitude value should touch the top edge of the plot frame). The same
principle is applied when the plot is panned using the mouse movement. For
panning the plot, all you need to do is to click on the point of the plot you want
to pan and then drag the mouse on your desired direction: left, right, up or down.
Another useful feature that Altvstime tool provides is its ability to compute and
mark the Rise/Set/Transit times. This can be accomplished by a simple press of
one of the Rise, Set or Transit buttons. When one of these buttons is pressed, a
filled colored circle will be marked on the curve. The color used for Rise, Set and
Transit dots are: red for Rise, blue for Set and green for Transit time. For a more
intuitive way of using these buttons, they are marked with the color of their
specific dots. This way, the user can easily understand the plot and make the
association between a certain color and its significance.
Altvstime tool provides an easy way to find out the altitude of a sky-object at a
certain moment of time using the Compute button. After you select the object
from the Objects list and set the moment of time, the altitude can be computed
by pressing the Compute button. But this is not the only way you can find out the
altitude. Another method is to hover with mouse above one curve and thus, a
tooltip containing the Local Time, Local Sidereal Time and Altitude will come up.
This way, you can read the information in real time.
The Altitude of an object depends on both where you are on Earth, and on the
Date. By default, the Tool adopts the Location and Date from the
current KStars settings. You can change these parameters in the Date &
Location Tab. To change the Location, you can press the Choose City... button to
open the Set Geographic Location Window, or enter Longitude and Latitude
values manually in the input fields, and press the Update button. To change the
Date, use the spin and combo boxes, then press Update. Note that any curves
you had already plotted will be automatically updated when you change the Date
and/or Location.
Tip
Exercise:
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