Celestia Forums

Well, the others already replied what I would reply on the asteroid thing (and good that they did too, because I don't read green text), but I must add a little something: Mass extintion is not imminent: mass extinion is a fact, caused by human activity. We're losing tens of species every year espec...

Yeah, it sounds liek, somehow, there are two entries in your directory for Io. Possibly the result of some sort of add-on that you installed? Yes, the second Io came in with the asteroid_IMPS_50km.ssc file, which includes almost all ateroidal bodies larger than 50 km in radius (don't remember what ...

I could almost see the IAU taking so long to decide on an official name (or ending up with a name that is in such an obscure language that nobody can pronounce it) that in popular parlance the Xena/Gabrielle names would stick anyway... Problem with that, of course, is that what's an obscure languag...

BrainDead wrote:By the way, it is indeed the "Silvia Corona" - not "Sylvia" on Venus.

Oh, I thought you were referring to the asteroid. Sorry about that.

And there's still no Jorge asteroid. Darn! :) BTW: I think it should be forbidden to give the same name to asteroids and satellites. Once I tried to go to asteroid Io in Celestia and there was no way, apart from the solar system browser. Following the list (what do you call it? The one you get to by...

John, It's not the others: it's the guys who are in the naming commissions (there are several: Nomenclature for Fundamental Astronomy, Solar and Interplanetary Nomenclature, Small Bodies Nomenclature, Planetary System Nomenclature and Binary and Multiple System Nomenclature). I'm probably wrong, but...

Many of the stars have names that already are thousands of years old. I had the impression that quite a few people find the histories of those names quite fascinating. People with a non-trivial interest in astronomy? Sure. The public at large? Not at all. They coundn't care less, even when they kno...

And I wander if all that thoughtfulness is worth the trouble. After all, a couple of centuries from now all the names of astronomical bodies will be just that: names. Very few people will know, and practically nobody will care, about the origins and meaning they carry. The best thing to do would pro...

Well, it was pretty neat. Light dimmed quite a lot, temperature also chilled noticeably, and one or two birds even decided to emit an interrogative peep as if asking "what the heck?!" The sun was reduced to a thin arc around here. It was a lot more intense than the largest eclipse I had seen before,...

And some 83-84% here in the Algarve. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to watch the eclipse, though, since at the time of its maximum I'm usually on the road. I may have to get late to work, but since it's probably going to be the largest eclipse I'll ever see I may do just that.

**shrugs** I'm not debating you on this, mind you. I know. I just wanted to throw a bit of context in. In fact, that article agrees with most of what I wrote above, namely: - Things aren't serious when we look at the big picture - No mass extinctions are going to happen - The atmosphere shields us ...

Human beings have been on the Earth for a number of million years, during which there have been many reversals, and there is no obvious correlation between human development and reversals. Note that this "human development" they refer to is the development of the species, not individual development...

You won't see the effects of reversals in the fossil records. They are not chatastrophic events and do not cause extintions (although they could accelerate the disappearance of populations and species that are already fragilized before the reversal). An increased rate of radiation-related deseases i...

Actually, as far as human life is concerned (and all other life, really), it may have a real impact. Not enough to endanger the survival of the species or their ability to reproduce, but enough to somewhat increase the rate of mutation and the amount of cancer deseases due to higher radiation enviro...

I've seen also horizontal lines in at least one texture, don't remember which right now. I may try to find it later on, and if I do I'll post an image then. Found it, or at least one example of it: http://static.flickr.com/27/47551806_d1a49daa2e.jpg This is the "Cernunnos" gas giant in Rob Sanders'...

Hi, Since I'll upgrade my graphics card in a few days (to a Radeon 9500... any known problems with this one?) and expect that this bug will disappear with the upgrade, I thought I might as well document it while I have it. The problem is that most textures show lines where there should be a seameles...

t00fri wrote:1600x1200

I thought so. And that makes all the difference in the world. With a starting point that is almost twice as large, even with the same image treatement the end result is inevitably twice as good.

in accordance with Celestia's design philosophy, up to now, the core code of Celestia did never include purely fictional features. ... Well, this isn't entirely true. Before being inadequately corrected, I'd appreciate if you read my post carefully: I said purely fictitional. That IS TRUE. It is? O...

Hang on. So you're telling me that those are enlarged after the dump? Hum... if that's the case, then I surely see your point. Just out of curiosity, how large are the images your dumps produce? I can't get past 730 pixels of height myself, although that might change once I get a new graphic card.

in accordance with Celestia's design philosophy, up to now, the core code of Celestia did never include purely fictional features. As far as I am concerned, this will not change. Fictional features are rather a matter for add-on creators. Well, this isn't entirely true. You do have fictional featur...