Constellations and the Night Sky

[murf]

As an astronomy buff in the real lifes, I was growing to wonder if Eorzea had any form of categorization with its night sky. Are there constellations? Do any stars have names? Can we see other planets and what are they named? Are they based on myths, or real life sources? Do different races/clans and city states have different constellations?

I know it's not critical to the story or anything, but I think such details lend a modicum of detail to the culture of the world. Pretty much every major civilization on Earth had categorized and partitioned the night sky in this manner even before the advent of telescopes. So why would Eorzea be any different?

(I'll check my complaints about certain physical impossibilities of lunar phase movement across the sky at the door. That's a post for another time.)

[Azeeza]

This, right here.

Not to bring up XI, but it did have constellations and lore as to how they formed. I would love to see the same thing with Eorzea~.

[Jinketsu]

Since this game is supposed to be heavily influenced by other FFs, could we assume that there might be a dungeon on the moon?

[Myranda]

As someone whose degree is in astronomy, I must wholly endorse this idea. I too enjoyed that XI had constellations to its sky, and going one step further I appreciated that the brightest stars of each constellation were aspected in color to a different element/primal. For XIV I could also see the elements being used for this, but also the Twelve as a sort of zodiac.

I have doubts there would be other named planets in the Eorzean sky because 1.) as cool as it would be, there's not a lot to be gained for the extra effort of programming in such planetary motions, especially if they weren't trivially geocentric and b.) it's been stated very few Eorzeans even have a concept of a planet, not even knowing their own as Hydælyn. Granted even in RL ancient times the general populace may not have known these things, with all but the most basic knowledge of heavenly motions reserved to the well-to-do scholars. But we can hope~

I'm curious about your moon phases gripe though... can't say I noticed much amiss in the way it moved in 1.0 but I also wasn't paying a lot of attention. Is it because the in-game appearance doesn't match the clock widget, as the following link states? (which is not an observation I made myself)

I did notice that the little corner icon for phases is backwards for waxing/waning according to the northern hemisphere convention I would expect Japanese programmers to use, so either Eorzea/Aldenard/Vylbrand are in the southern hemisphere of Hydælyn or the moons orbit backwards relative to the planet's spin (which is set, since we know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west just like Earth). A retrograde orbit is a huge red flag in terms of plausibility especially given a larger sized moon, but not necessarily impossible. Either that or it's developer oversight. :P

Off-topic: Going back to XI, anyone even noticed that airships always flew north towards Ifrit's Star, regardless of what the terrain was doing underneath or which route you were taking? XD

[murf]

I'm curious about your moon phases gripe though... can't say I noticed much amiss in the way it moved in 1.0 but I also wasn't paying a lot of attention. Is it because the in-game appearance doesn't match the clock widget, as the following link states? (which is not an observation I made myself)[/size]

I noticed the clock discrepancy as well. But that's not it.

The moon (not Dalamud, and on that note, does the regular moon have a name too?) had normal phases, but it always appeared from dusk to dawn, as only a full moon would, regardless of phase. I noticed this at chance when I was in La Noscea and saw a 'waxing crescent' moon setting at dawn, when that particular phase should be setting in early evening. All other phase were the same.

Off-topic: Going back to XI, anyone even noticed that airships always flew north towards Ifrit's Star, regardless of what the terrain was doing underneath or which route you were taking? XD[/size]

I never noticed that. I can't recall the specifics, but the boat from Thanalan to Limsa seemed to move straight in terms of the compass. IE: You sailed 'west' into the sunset, but then Limsa appears on the horizon of the west, even though you should be approaching it from the east since the docks face west. (Or some convoluted mess like that).

[Myranda]

I noticed the clock discrepancy as well. But that's not it.

The moon (not Dalamud, and on that note, does the regular moon have a name too?) had normal phases, but it always appeared from dusk to dawn, as only a full moon would, regardless of phase. I noticed this at chance when I was in La Noscea and saw a 'waxing crescent' moon setting at dawn, when that particular phase should be setting in early evening. All other phase were the same.

Yikes, that would bother me too. @_@

Sounds like they're using a statically placed moon at the antisolar point then, and just changing the texture for its "illumination" without actually moving it to match the necessary geometry of the light source (i.e. the sun). Moving the moon around shouldn't be hard to do and it doesn't have to be continuous. Having it just move once each Eorzean day in a discrete skip would be fine and no one would notice unless they really kept close watch on the moon. Even every 4 Eorzean days (the time between each major phase classification) would probably be reasonable as a compromise if they only want 8 moon texture variations instead of 32.

You know what would be extra cool? Rarely occurring Eorzean eclipses! I doubt this would happen even more than planets getting introduced. They'd have to combine moon motion with solar motion as well to keep it from happening every single Eorzean month. Although solar motion would be nice too because that's how we'd get seasonal variation in the visible constellations, just like we have here...

I never noticed that. I can't recall the specifics, but the boat from Thanalan to Limsa seemed to move straight in terms of the compass. IE: You sailed 'west' into the sunset, but then Limsa appears on the horizon of the west, even though you should be approaching it from the east since the docks face west. (Or some convoluted mess like that).

Hmm... I think you did mix up a few easts and wests in there but I get what you're saying. With Limsa's docks on the western side of the island, the boat would have to make a turn (change compass direction) to properly sail into harbor after passing Vylbrand's southern shores. I wonder how the compass looked going Limsa -> Thanalan compared to Thanalan -> Limsa as well. Because like the FFXI thing I mentioned, Jeuno <=> Kazham (or any other city combination), didn't matter which way you were going, always north according to the sky texture, lol.

[murf]

Yea. Having done game assets before, I totally understand how sky-boxes work and why they don't inherently support proper celestial mechanics. And it's a lot of work to patch it do something only a smattering of people are going to notice or appreciate.

It's sort of like the story of how Neil deGrasse Tyson told James Cameron he got the night sky wrong in Titanic, and then Cameron chastised him with "Imagine how much extra money Titanic would have made if I got the sky right." Of course, then Cameron went to fix it in an updated DVD version... but still, I can wish really hard.

But yea! Eclipses! Yea, we could complain about having proper lunar and solar motions, but I'd say it'd be enough setting some form of schedule like "a lunar or solar eclipse occurs only once every three or so real life months" as long as they recognize the fact that lunars only occur on full moons and solars only on new moons. Or randomly have a comet or meteor every few months. That sort of diversity/random occurrence would be neat and make the night sky interesting to look at.

Of course, also as best I can tell, it looks like a generic starfield with no cloudy streak indicating that Hydælyn is in a galaxy. Is it in a cluster with no galaxy? Is that even possible?

NOTE: I apologize for derailing my own Lore discussion into one about using proper science on a minor environmental graphics detail.

[Myranda]

NOTE: I apologize for derailing my own Lore discussion into one about using proper science on a minor environmental graphics detail.

There's nothing to apologize for!!! :P We're at least still on topic as far as a desire to see a diverse night sky in many aspects with implications for the lore. And the Titanic story is always a classic, what really sells it is the passion in Tyson's voice when he tells it himself.

Of course, also as best I can tell, it looks like a generic starfield with no cloudy streak indicating that Hydælyn is in a galaxy. Is it in a cluster with no galaxy? Is that even possible?

An isolated cluster may not be probable (I wouldn't place Hydælyn in a cluster at all, we don't see enough bright nearby stars in the night sky and such a dense stellar environment doesn't bode well for planetary stability), but certainly there are gas-depleted dwarf galaxies out there that aren't much bigger than clusters in terms of total stars but are more spread out, and don't have spiral shapes or any kind of form of extended matter that would lead to a galactic streak of sorts. So if we're hell bent on an explanation without changing the current appearance of the sky, let's go with that.

[murf]

So if we're hell bent on an explanation without changing the current appearance of the sky, let's go with that.

Sounds good to me! I'm only an amateur at astronomy so I'll readily defer to someone with more knowledge at it than I.

Of course, there could just be some odd level of ambient light pollution that doesn't allow for naked eye viewing of a galactic streak, or perhaps it emits in some band of light outside the visible light spectrum. I don't think Eorzea has developed radio/infrared/x-ray/etc. astronomy as of yet.

[Enkidoh]

The moon (not Dalamud, and on that note, does the regular moon have a name too?)

Isn't the primary moon known as 'Menphina' after the goddess of the moon and love Menphina?

Dalamud after all was referred to as 'Menphina's loyal hound', so that alone seems pretty concrete that Eorzeans call the primary moon and the goddess of the moon by the same name (after all, in real life the word referring to Earth's moon ('lunar') is derived from the Roman goddess of the moon Luna, so there is definitely precedent there.).

I did notice that the little corner icon for phases is backwards for waxing/waning according to the northern hemisphere convention I would expect Japanese programmers to use, so either Eorzea/Aldenard/Vylbrand are in the southern hemisphere of Hydælyn or the moons orbit backwards relative to the planet's spin (which is set, since we know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west just like Earth). A retrograde orbit is a huge red flag in terms of plausibility especially given a larger sized moon, but not necessarily impossible. Either that or it's developer oversight. :P

Well, it appears to me at least that Eorzea is in Hydaelyn's northern hemisphere - at the end of at least two of the ARR trailers where it pans out to show Hydaelyn from space it seems to show Aldenard and Vlybrand in the northern hemisphere of the planet. But it's not very clear after all (if I can find a screencap of the trailer in question I'll post it here).

EDIT:



It's not the best (I had to increase the brightness to show the planet's detail), but I managed to pull a screenshot from this trailer, and you can see Aldenard and Vlybrand quite clearly - although the sun is obscured behind Hydaelyn the light bloom on the top right corner of the planet hints at it's axial tilt, thus showing that Eorzea is pretty conclusively located in the northern hemisphere.