This week I was able to organize my stars (ellipses) by distance order in Illustrator in a clean fashion.  My code was able to compute the stars’ temperature (by color), apparent magnitude (opacity), and mass (size). My last remaining values are distance and age. Originally, distance was going to be measured by placement on a spiral, starting closest to the sun and age was going to be measured by each star’s proximity to the spiral (on the spiral = very young; far away = very old) connecting each star by a line attached to the spiral. However, the variating ages interfere with the actual space that the beginning of the spiral offers and quickly creates a messy look (it was kind of anticipated). Now I’m working on sketches that could make this spiral idea work out but in a  form that allows a consistent look despite the varying values.

Here’s my illustratorfile so far.

Here is a sketch of a possible new spiral.