will-henney / bowshock-shape

Calculate shape of wind-wind bowshocks
1 stars 0 forks source link

Extend hyperbola fits to other conic sections #16

Closed will-henney closed 11 years ago

will-henney commented 11 years ago

Many of the fits gravitate towards theta_inf = 0 (parabola). But we also need to fill in the space between the parabola and the circle, which is occupied by fat ellipses, and then go past the circle into thin ellipses.

I think that the whole range can be covered using an eccentricity e, which is positive for ellipses (e=1 for circle), and negative for hyperbolas, with e=0 corresponding to the parabola.