GSoC/GCI Archive
Google Code-in 2012 KDE

Marble: Add Deep Sky Objects to Stars Plugin

completed by: Timothy Lanzi

mentors: Torsten Rahn, René Küttner, Dennis Nienhüser

The stars plugin inside Marble displays the stars and constellations. However it would be nice if at least the brightest Deek Sky objects ("DSOs", e.g. nebulae, galaxies) would be added.

This task is about extending the stars plugin so that it also renders the brightest DSOs.The DSOs should get rendered as a glow to achieve a somewhat natural appearance.

You can download the DSO "icon" from here. It looks empty, but it contains a soft glow that is only visible on black background.

The DSOs should get stored in a file "dso.dat". The initial version should contain:

M31

M42

For coordinates look for the Right ascension and Declination in the article 

The DSOs should be rendered before the stars are rendered, so that the stars appear on top.

You can use this Url as a reference for determining the location of the DSOs.