Instructions on how to use the Virtual Orrery:

Important:

• To change your view of the Orrery you can:
  • Drag the mouse left and right to rotate the orrery.
  • Drag the mouse up and down to 'tilt' the orrery.
• The Reset Button resets the positions of the planets, the viewing orientation, and the orrery speed.
• The Pause Button stops the orrery if it is moving.
• The Continue Button starts the orrery moving again if it is stopped.
• The Speed Up and Slow Down Buttons respectively speed up and slow down the orrery by a factor of two, to the limits that have been imposed for maximum browser compatibility.

Not So Important:

• The planets turn a lighter bronze as the go further away from the viewer, regular bronze when they're right in the middle and a darker bronze as they get closer.  This is to help visualize the 3-D effects, and to show an 'illumination' by the central sun...
• The yellowish wedge on the table shows where the planets started to keep track of the orientation of the orrery.
• Note that the Speed Up and Slow Down Buttons limit the speed at which you can rotate and tilt the orrery as well.  This is due to the fact that the applet "sleeps" between moving the orrery. If the orrery is paused, it still goes through the motions of moving the orrery at the current speed without actually moving it.   Thus, to easily rotate and tilt the orrery when it is paused, one can press the Speed Up button to increase the response time of the applet.