I actually posted this to the feature requests awhile
back, but I thought it would be seen if I posted it
here for everyone. Curt mentioned that it might not
be too difficult to implement this. I'd try to do it myself,
except I'm definitely not ready for any fancy GL programming
yet, or ready to fiddle with the FlightGear code yet.
Basically Curt said what is needed is an RGB database of
the different stars. Here's what I managed to find.
I've located a database almost exactly like the FG one,
except this one has spectral classes as the final parameter.
The data file with the spectral class comes from the
openuniverse program.
One could simply map the different spectral types to RGB
(i.e. spectral type "B8", the star Rigel, can map to a blue
color). This could be as simple as a lookup table with RGB
values for each spectral class (there's not a huge amount
of them). The only foreseeable problem is figuring out
which RGB value goes to what class and what value it
should have. That shouldn't be a huge problem, since the
general color of each spectral class can be easily found in
any astronomy guidebook. If you were to hardcode the
spectral -> RGB binding, you could use the original data
file (the one with spectral classes). The only problem with
the file containing the spectral info is that some numbers
are rounded off.
As for planets only 5 are visible to the naked eye. In the
planets data file, Uranus and Neptune are listed, which is
pointless since they shouldn't be rendered...
Coloring them is simple. Mars is red, Venus is a bright
yellowish (like a light bulb turned on, and viewed from
a distance), Jupiter is an orangish-yellow, and Saturn is
a dimmer yellow.
Sorry if I can't provide the RGB values themselves, but
I have no way of figuring what RGB the colors will convert
to.
Peace,
JD
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