Eclipse?

[Papahemmy]

So I was playing ksp and I was just driving around in my car and I just looked up for a sec and noticed some thing the Mun is awfully close to the sun.

(no the car is not floating the camera is just in the ground)

 And it made me wonder is it possible for a solar eclipse to happen? And if it could happen, during the event what would happen? A Kerbal apocalypse were all the dead kerbals come back and destroy KSC. its just a theory. tell me what you think about this or if a solar eclipse have happened to you.

[blorgon]

They happen all the time in KSP, because Kerbin has no axial tilt, and Mun is in the same plane as Kerbin's orbital path around Kerbol. This means that every couple of hours, Mun eclipses Kerbol.

If you do a quick search here or on the KSP subreddit, you'll see that people post screenshots of eclipses all the time, but because they're so commonplace, they usually get downvoted.

[UmbralRaptor]

The Mün's orbit has a 0° inclination, so eclipses happen every 39 hours 12 minutes The notable effects are a lack of solar power and in some cases nearby ground looks shadowed..

[klesh]

Yup. 

 

 

[cubinator]

The mod Scatterer adds some really cool visual effects for eclipses, you should check that out if you haven't already.

[strigon]

They're extremely commonplace, especially compared to Earth.
As for what happens? An apocalypse is very possible.

If by "apocalypse" you mean "expensive ship not getting enough power and going drastically off course, causing you to delete the save".

[The Aziz]

Eclipses on Duna are even worse, if you're on side where you can see Ike, they happen every single sol.

[LordFerret]

The real fun starts when you've neglected adequate battery, and you're flying through an eclipse, and it's time to fire those engines for that maneuver..........

[kBob]

Anyone know how to calculate when the next eclipse will occur?  On Earth I just use Wolframalpha.

[Grenartia]

2 hours ago, LordFerret said:

The real fun starts when you've neglected adequate battery, and you're flying through an eclipse, and it's time to fire those engines for that maneuver..........

I suppose you're SOL unless you packed RTGs or fuel cells.

Speaking of which, does anyone actually use fuel cells?

Edited June 13, 2016 by Grenartia

[blorgon]

30 minutes ago, Grenartia said:

I suppose you're SOL unless you packed RTGs or fuel cells.

Speaking of which, does anyone actually use fuel cells?

Fuel cells + panels for all manned craft.

RTGs for probes, autonomous rovers, and satellies.

[Grenartia]

Just now, blorgon said:

Fuel cells + panels for all manned craft.

RTGs for probes, autonomous rovers, and satellies.

I mean, I've just never really seen a benefit to fuel cells. Then again, I'm entirely uncomfortable with the idea of sacrificing any delta-v, even if I need power.

[blorgon]

1 minute ago, Grenartia said:

I mean, I've just never really seen a benefit to fuel cells. Then again, I'm entirely uncomfortable with the idea of sacrificing any delta-v, even if I need power.

I use them as emergency power. I learned long ago that relying on any one system in KSP is a fatal mistake. There are just too many bugs and weird physics quirks to rely on just one source of power. I keep them off until my EC is terrifyingly low. This only ever happens when I'm out around Jool, or my solar panels broke off because I looked at them wrong.

And, of course, anything beyond Jool, I just take fuel cells for manned craft (I roleplay and minimize the use of RTGs around crew), as the power they generate no longer justifies the weight of bringing them along.

[Grenartia]

3 minutes ago, blorgon said:

I use them as emergency power. I learned long ago that relying on any one system in KSP is a fatal mistake. There are just too many bugs and weird physics quirks to rely on just one source of power. I keep them off until my EC is terrifyingly low. This only ever happens when I'm out around Jool, or my solar panels broke off because I looked at them wrong.

And, of course, anything beyond Jool, I just take fuel cells for manned craft (I roleplay and minimize the use of RTGs around crew), as the power they generate no longer justifies the weight of bringing them along.

See, I also do the redundancy thing. Just not with FCs.

I always figured that Kerbals can just metabolize most forms of EM radiation and are resistant to alpha and beta emitters. Certainly explains why they have no problem with nuclear rockets on liftoff, and why they can live indefinitely in a capsule with no obvious source of food. So, as much as that logic holds up, putting RTGs in close proximity is basically feeding them.

[KerikBalm]

Can we make a sticky telling people not to post eclipse threads?

The Mun has zero inclination, KSC is at the equator... eclipses happen once per munth... and some player sees one and post them here as if it were a special occurence about once per month

[Tex_NL]

2 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Can we make a sticky telling people not to post eclipse threads?

The Mun has zero inclination, KSC is at the equator... eclipses happen once per munth... and some player sees one and post them here as if it were a special occurence about once per month

Don't fool yourself. Making it a sticky is an exercise in futility. People do NOT read rules, FAQ's and/or stickies unless they are shoved into their faces.

Edited June 13, 2016 by Tex_NL

[Sereneti]

3 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Can we make a sticky telling people not to post eclipse threads?

The Mun has zero inclination, KSC is at the equator... eclipses happen once per munth... and some player sees one and post them here as if it were a special occurence about once per month

there are some random in this.
because kerbin spin around, so the Eclipse is not nessesaryl on the KSP...

on earth there are some eclipses every year...

 

[LordFerret]

8 hours ago, Grenartia said:

Speaking of which, does anyone actually use fuel cells?

I had one ship that I did use them with, an Ion craft out to Eeloo.

[KerikBalm]

well, eclipses of somewhere on kerbin occur every 6 days... so I guess the question is how long do eclipses last... which would be the apparent angular diameter of Mun from kerbin surface/360 * orbital period.

Earth's moon is about 1/2 a degree.. Mun is about 3x bigger....so it will block the sun for 1.5/360th of its orbit.... 0.0042 * its orbital period (138984)... it should block the sun for about 580 seconds... or about 10 minutes... so if you're in orbit with an orbital period of 30 minutes... then about 1/3 of the time you'd see an eclipse as it happens.

So 1 eclipse every 6 days somewhere on kerbin

1 eclipse every 18 days on average from a vessel in low equatorial orbit.

If a kerbin day is 6 hours, thats 1 eclipse of KSC every 360 kerbin days.  There are over 426 kerbin days per kerbin year, so these eclipses of KSC happen more than once per year...

I guess I just thought they were more common because I see them from orbit a lot more often

 

[Lunar Sea]

15 hours ago, LordFerret said:

The real fun starts when you've neglected adequate battery, and you're flying through an eclipse, and it's time to fire those engines for that maneuver..........

Particularly when that maneuver is landing  

Parts of my barebones lander are still on Ike.

[StrandedonEarth]

Yeah, those Ike eclipses can be brutal. And they make it look like planetary devastation is happening.

[samstarman5]

19 hours ago, Grenartia said:

I mean, I've just never really seen a benefit to fuel cells. Then again, I'm entirely uncomfortable with the idea of sacrificing any delta-v, even if I need power.

They are more ideal when going out to Jool and Eeloo where solar power is a lot less efficient, and for ground bases where you might expect long nights.  Otherwise I don't see them being for inflight missions except as auxiliary power.

[Grenartia]

1 hour ago, samstarman5 said:

They are more ideal when going out to Jool and Eeloo where solar power is a lot less efficient, and for ground bases where you might expect long nights.  Otherwise I don't see them being for inflight missions except as auxiliary power.

I imagine if one wanted to, they could set up an orbital conveyor belt, of solar power generators topping off battery modules, and from there, getting kicked into the outer Kerbol system near the various planets and moons, to maintain an easy power supply. One could even have said batteries powering mining bases to extract the ore and process it into LF/O and/or monoprop in order to keep the conveyor belt going.

[Der Anfang]

On 6/13/2016 at 10:08 AM, LordFerret said:

 

On 6/12/2016 at 10:45 PM, LordFerret said:

The real fun starts when you've neglected adequate battery, and you're flying through an eclipse, and it's time to fire those engines for that maneuver..........

Even funner with ion probes, haha!

Edited June 14, 2016 by Der Anfang

[KerikBalm]

15 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Yeah, those Ike eclipses can be brutal. And they make it look like planetary devastation is happening.

Is there a mod that adds shadows cast by celestial bodies on other celestial bodies?! or is this an edited image?

Edited June 14, 2016 by KerikBalm