Add possible new orbital marker additions?

[Ironman65]

Could these orbital markers be added to Stellarium and be turned on and off like the equinoxes and solstices symbols etc? The Earth’s and the other planets distance points like Perihelion and Aphelion; and ascending and descending nodes. And here’s one that I think would be a nice addition and it is probably the easiest to place. The Solar Apex and Solar Antapex point. The point of direction of the Solar system is traveling in space. Again thanks and I appreciate all that you do.

[gzotti]

That is far from easy. We don't compute orbital elements and then the planets's positions on Keplerian ellipses, but compute the planets' positions from analytic expressions or numerical simulations. These do not provide such data.

The nodes are simply intersections between orbits and ecliptic, seen without topographic correction. No need for an extra marker (which is also not directly computable). Again, constructing real intersection lines would require orbital elements which our planet positioning sources do not provide.

Solar apex could be plotted as totally static extra point. But in Stellarium, the Sun is at rest in the local center of the Universe, so I don't see the point. It does not change place and does not need computing. You could write a script that shows a marker where you need it, and even run this in your startup.ssc.

[axd1967]

So this is what we are talking about (and has been implemented):

• [x] (ant)apex
• [ ] peri/aphelion
• [ ] Moon peri/apogeum
• [ ] Moon nodes

[axd1967]

The astrocalc plugin approach could also be used, where data is computed in an iterative way and in some cases plotted.