Visualization of eclipses and planetary conjunction events. The interplay between model coherence, scaling and animation

The problem of an instructive and realistic animation and visualization of the shadow- and color-conditions during conjunctions of actively and passively illuminated cosmic objects has found only particularly satisfying solutions so far. As an example we study a total solar eclipse. There are didactic shortcomings of specialized astronomical software, even though solutions have been given, which are very impressive for experts.

Using the possibilities of commercial 3D-animation software we give an object-oriented partial solution. In order to get correct astronomical representations we model – for different tasks – the object space under cinematic aspects with parameters for spatial and temporal scaling, for illumination and coloring under couplings of varying strength. The adaptation of the parameters to optimal acceptance of the spectator must be done a posteriori.