Have a Look Around!

Have a Look Around!

Now that we have the time and location set, let's have a look around. You can pan the display using the arrow keys. If you hold down the Shift key before panning, the scrolling speed is doubled. The display can also be panned by clicking and dragging with the mouse. Note that while the display is scrolling, not all objects are displayed. This is done to cut down on the CPU load of recomputing object positions, which makes the scrolling smoother. You can zoom in and out with the + and - keys, with the zoom in/out buttons in the toolbar, or by selecting Zoom In/Zoom Out in the View menu. Notice that as you zoom in, you can see fainter stars than at lower zoom settings.

Zoom out until you can see a green curve; this represents your local horizon. If you haven't adjusted the KStars configuration, the display will be solid green below the horizon, representing the solid ground of the Earth. There is also a white curve, which represents the celestial equator (an imaginary line which divides the sky into northern and southern hemispheres). There is also a tan curve, which represents the Ecliptic, the path that the Sun appears to follow across the sky over the course of a year. Therefore, the Sun is always found somewhere along the Ecliptic, and the planets are never far from it.

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