Simple question. What is Xplanet? It's purpose and function. I have not found documentation on it for KStars other than a sourceforge page by the same name.

I asked the same question a good while ago. Then I examined the source code and found it had a lot of potential, but was being under utilized. So when I was working on some other things to get KStars working on Macs, I worked on integrating xplanet a little more. Basically what it does for KStars is it can display "current" images of the planets with their moons, Earth's moon, and the sun. To use the feature, you right click on one of those objects, then select "view in xplanet". It also has some additional features where you can control labels in the images and other settings. In order to be truly effective though, it would need to have accurate planet maps, so you have to make sure those are installed. For the Mac OS X version, I included these: flatplanet.sourceforge.net/maps/alien.html, but I'm not sure how accurate they are.

Here's some examples:

Accurate rendering of the current moon phase:


Renderings of the current showing face of planets (only accurate if the map is accurate):


Renderings of a planet with its moons:


So it can be a pretty powerful feature, but it could also use more work to make it easier to use and even more integrated. But it does have some useful functionality now.

Thanks,

Rob

I'd really like someone to integrate an astrometry function to locate and slew to a particular feature of the Moon. Would be awesome for large focal length telescopes.

-Eric

Oh that is quite nice! Unfortunately when I try it I get an error

Eric, I'm not sure how easy that would be to do. I don't think Xplanet can do that. The moon is nice because the same side always faces us, so maybe the features could be put in if we knew their relative RA/DEC

Ihoujin, what operating system are you using?

Lubuntu 16.04

did you install xplanet? And once you did so, did you edit the path in the KStars options?

I had not taken any additional steps that I can recall for installations.
I appears I had not installed xplanet, I have done so now. At this point it opens but the only thing displayed is a featureless orb.
What next? Is the a documentation page I can follow?

Yes, as I said, you will need to install maps.

xplanet.sourceforge.net/maps.php

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that either. I had a look at the page and there seem to be a lot of maps around. Any that you can recommend?

The ones i use currently are in the link that I posted, under flatplanet, the alien archive.

flatplanet.sourceforge.net/maps/

So your post made me think about xplanet again. I think I might make a couple of modifications, like adding a FOV slider. This could help in moon identifications and in zooming in and out on a planet and its moons to get better identifications of them