Creating an accurate Sun-Earth-Moon system

Assigned to Aiza Ahmad (2nd year astrophysics major). Started on Sep 17, 2024
Goals:
- Create a realistic & accurate Sun-Earth-Moon model in Unity (HDRP)
  - with 2K (or 8K) texture images from Solar Textures
  - with accurate orbits calculated from orbital elements. Check the embedded PDF file in this page where a tutorial on how to calculate true anomaly is included.
- Create/place several cameras to track a solar eclipse or a lunar eclipse, or an overview such as top-down view, etc.
  - additional camera comoving with the Earth pointed toward the Moon can show a lunar phase cycle with its libration.
- Add a rich User Interface components such as mouse tilt/swivel/zoom control, etc.
- Add a set of calculated shadow cones to simulate eclipse phenomena → check the “technical aspects” section of eclipse
Timeline: finish the model development by Dec 2024
Store files in [https://github.com/STEMin3D/STEMin3D|the project GitHub repository]]. Create a subdirectory under “Scripts” as needed.
Bi-weekly progress update (via email, face-2-face meeting, or Zoom)