Celestia Forums

How about Frank's commercial activities ?? ;-) . Are you saying that he's not allowed to use your add-ons when selling his Celestia-EDU stuff? Or did you grant him a special deal in exchange of hosting your add-ons? Fridger As far as I can see, Frank's "commercial activities" consist of c...

What we can do immediately is cutting this in two, hobbyists and professionals. No problem with the Pro, they are easy to spot. The Hobbyist will be all people who's professional field is not linked to astronomy, astrophysics, space exploration and so on. Eventually we could do a subgroup of them w...

i am now at the point where my kids can spot venus, mars, mercury, jupiter and the southern cross. my next venture is to run some of the scripts in a solar system fly past. next, celestia. i am not sure where to go. after the demo, i guess the solar system. however, i don't know how i will squeeze ...

Yes, try an atmosphere with about another 400Gt of CO2 into atmosphere or equiv in another GHG.

I think that people using exclusive GUI interfaces arent people that would have learned command line well enough to unleash the power anyway. GUIs make computers more accessible to less literate or occasional users.

Its dangerous to play with these solvers without some understanding of how they work. If you have no background in numerical analysis, then I suggest you start with Numerical Recipes in C++. While the code has limitations, the explanation as to how the beasts work is good. netlib has more complex co...

I would certainly rather this argument was excised. While I can see the point of the criticism about phrases out of context, I would have to agree with Frank, that unless closely read, it DOES sounds like personal criticism. Likewise, while pedantry is professional quality, it can sound like fight-p...

Looking at Franks' other work (eg origins of moon), I would say that his work DOES present alternative hypotheses, and so why not engage the student with graphic demonstration of what is the leading hypothesis. Unlike physics, hypotheses in geology are hard to constrain. The asteroid theory has mult...

you may have found this, but if not:
http://serc.carleton.edu/research_educa ... raphy.html

For your needs, I think you will have to go back to the sources though.

The PLATES program is sort of clearing house that we are involved with but using the data is tricky.

There is international effort going into the shape of world but I will have to ask my colleagues whether there is anything that really integrates everything. Getting a plate reconstruction at 65 million year should be too bad. While always under revision, there is good data. Getting a worldwide shor...

Dont see ability to modify texture on the timeline? That would be good.

An obvious extension of the idea would be to allow for texturing to change through time. Eg for tectonic plate reconstructions shown on Earth

Paolo wrote:

scaddenp wrote:

But this will remain a dream for a very looooong time.

Yes, I believe so. A 100m grid of 2byte height covering the earth would be
something like 152GB. (Think I have that calculation right). Without
google-type streaming, its tough on disc.

Yes something like this http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3744650885934024232 But is this real or someone playing with LOD tricks and procedural detail. Celestia isnt a game and I am not sure I like the idea of procedural terrain in it. Surface to planet LOD control is a major, major project...

Anyone been able to create a cel link to a view like this? (Or the famous earthrise)

Well my understanding is that orbitals parameters are constantly changing.
(eg tilt, eccentricity, precession) ie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

However, I dont believe Celestia has mechanism for modifying these on a continuous basis.

I have a 9 years old son which is passionate of astronomy. I?€™m struggling to find some astronomy software for his passion but with very little success. Until now I have found Iris astronomy software which is pretty interesting, and I need similar software but more specific to his age. Thank you i...

Well I am very reluctant to promise help and then find I dont have time. I will try to look at Celestia over Dec-Jan and then decide whether I can commit. C++ (not my favourite language but some experience) and OpenGL - yeah, for some time, though still getting my head around the shader language.

Books = Awsome! :) adaptations of books = Crap :( (they always get my hopes up too...) Note that radio play isnt adaptation of book - its the original. Manic and occasionally obvious that Adams is making it up as he goes. The books allowed him to rationalise the material somewhat though still needs...

Well I would say read the book BUT you really should listen to the radio play.
There are story lines and totally off the wall moments (eg nature of reality and shoe horizon) that are only in the radio version. The TV series was total crap and added nothing whatsoever to the story.