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Destructavator:
According to a science page at http://www.freemars.org/jeff/planets/Luna/Luna.htm , Earth's moon is about 3,476 km in diameter, or 3,476,000 meters across (notice the "k" which stands for "kilo" or a thousand in "km"). A spacecraft even a thousand meters across would have a shadow 1/3476th of the diameter of the moon, or, in other words, so tiny that looking at the entire moon it would be so relatively small it would not be seen.
If you still don't believe me, try rendering the whole thing in the software with the moon larger to approach the proper scale of the ship relative to the moon (Don't go exactly to scale, I'm guessing the computer wouldn't handle it, I'd suggest even just twice as large) and you will see that the shadows from the ships will shrink more and more as you approach the "real" proportions of a ship several hundred meters across to a moon several million meters across.
This assumes that the moon in the render is the size of Earth's moon, but even a smaller moon would be so large that the shadows would be relatively so tiny they wouldn't be seen.
According to what I've studied in Astronomy class at college, tiny moons (where a shadow from such a spacecraft might be visible) would be more like asteroids and would be irregular in shape, not spherical, because of a lack of enough gravity to compress into a sphere.
Actually, our moon is a little egg-shaped, not a perfect sphere.
--- Quote ---The situation is different because Earth has an atmosphere which refracts light (think of the way light behaves in a fog). The moon doesn't have an atmosphere at all, so sunlight doesn't get refracted and the lighting as a whole is much more direct.
--- End quote ---
Actually, if you really wanted to be accurate (or downright picky), our moon does have an atmosphere, it's just extremely thin because of the much lower gravity (Another thing I learned in the same class at college). Even space between solar systems isn't completely empty, there are occasional particles of various junk that are microscopic.
Sean_E:
I am an ex-Air Force brat and have studied astronomy as well as aerospace science the 20+ years my father was enlisted.
All your calculations are either close or accurate. I am not going to bother getting exact dimensions, but the following is a scaled representation of what I would feel a carrier task force would look like passing from the dark side of the moon. Its blurry from the jpg compression.
I am not saying anything bad about Sitters renders and animations. They are very good. Perhaps some collaboration between us would be a good idea.
Winter: How High-res of an image would you like dimension wise?
Regards,
Sean E
sitters:
Yea with this sizes (The Carrier is between 200 and 300 metres in diameter (i.e. from launch bay to launch bay), so call it an even 250.) you don't see any shadows.
But earlier they say to me that the carrier size is 1/4 of the moon ( or even 1/4 of the earth ).
so we can trow the render in the trashcan. :(
Destructavator:
I wouldn't throw it away yet, at least not completely - If the shadows on the moon were simply removed I think it would look very nice.
I apologize if I made you feel bad, sitters, other than the shadows I think it's quite impressive.
EDIT: An alternative would be if it were decided that the ships were gigantic, although that's not my decision... (Although something comparable to a "Death Star" might be interesting, but that's up to the devs as well.)
Sean_E:
You can still use it for passing through a system with much smaller moons or orbital debris.
It is still good no matter what.
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