Calidar: Soltan Ephemeris Illustration

[Wired]

I don't think there's a realistic chance to depict a star system for the sake of illustrative cartography both in detail and in scale. I remember doing some of my older star system maps at a width of 6000px and the scale was still nowhere near realistic.

Sorry Thorf, can't rep you at the moment.

[Thorf]

I don't think there's a realistic chance to depict a star system for the sake of illustrative cartography both in detail and in scale. I remember doing some of my older star system maps at a width of 6000px and the scale was still nowhere near realistic.

Very true. I'm sure you've seen If the Moon Were Only One Pixel, which really brings this issue into perspective.

The only realistic way to work round this is to have multiple scales, with the planets on one scale and the distances between them on an entirely different one. But even then, showing the star at the same scale as the planets will make the planets tiny, so you have to have it on a scale of its own.

This is why I keep referring to this map as an illustration rather than a map.