LUNEX Default Scene Template

The Default Scene Template

The file called DEFAULT_SCENE_TEMPLATE.pov is used as a starting template for creating a new user-defined custom scene.

If we were to run the default LUNEX template program as-is, the default settings would simply render the standard default geocentric view of the full moon in fast render mode 1, as shown below, if all is OK.

To create a new custom scene, make a duplicate copy of the template file and rename it to whatever you wish to name your scene, then change the default settings to create and render your custom scene.

LUNEX Rendering of the Standard Default Geocentric View of the Full Moon

The Default Geocentric Full Moon With 5×5-degree Selenographic Coordinate Grid

The east and west directions shown in the diagram above are directions as referred to the lunar surface, not directions as referred to the background sky. This is why, at first glance, the −W / +E directions may seem backwards.

On the lunar surface, the selenographic latitude and longitude coordinates are analogous to the geographic latitude and longitude on Earth. Try to visualize a globe of Earth with latitude and longitude lines, then replace the Earth's surface with the lunar surface instead, the coordinate lines remaining in place. Only the scale (km/mi per degree) would change.

If you were standing on the moon facing south, east would still be reckoned to the left and west would be to the right and the sun would still rise in the east and set in the west, just as it does on Earth, except that it would take some two weeks to cross the lunar daytime sky and lunar nights would also be about two weeks long.