Celestia Forums

I propose we have a class "KBO" with its own orbit color etc. that we can use for things such as Sedna, Quaoar, and Varuna (and Pluto). I know Sedna isnt really a KBO because of its eccentricity, but it still would fit the new class better than any other. Right now i'm using the Moon class for these...

well i normally run celestia under red hat 9, so i don't really feel bad about it. i just wish it was physically portable like kstars.

Powerbook 867MHz / 512mb DDR / ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Getting constant framerates of between 7 and 15 frames per second, no matter what size of window I use to view Celestia. Switching render paths has no observable effect on framerate, but OpenGL Vertex mode causes strange problems: The Moon has ...

Thanks. I'll be at Oregon State for the third year of my degree though.

Sorry, I didn't read into the details of CustomOrbit very carefully. I assumed it was a marker for a predefined ellipse.

I still stand by my idea.

Maybe you could put together a simple model of KSC that could be positioned at the correct lat and long just like the moon landing sites, etc? It needn't be very complex, but it could consist of the VAB, 39A and 39B pads, and maybe a ground texture of the surrounding area on a large polygon. Just an...

Point taken. Given my interest in these things I think I'll read up on it in my own time before I get to my third year of my degree.

I stand by my general idea that something imperfect is better than nothing at all, as long as it doesn't compromise the rest of the program, which it won't.

I think you're overcomplicating the issue. My knowledge of the Jovian moon system's complex gravitational architecture has little to do with my ability to write a program to handle relatively simple mathematical equations. The equations are the same regardless of what environment you are in. For the...

Hank, I disagree entirely. If I can write the necessary equations out and get a working implementation in a 2 page Perl script with very little effort, it can be very easily done in Celestia. I think you are dramatically underestimating how easy it is to implement this feature. I fail to see how hav...

Correct. All I want is mass data included in the SSC's and the equations for processing this data. The planets and moons may continue on their preset elliptical orbits til the cows come home - no need to modify the basic idea of the program. I like the MH idea of having a key to toggle them on and o...

I'll check it out, but I really was hoping that just some simple functionality could be built in to Celestia. It wouldn't take much and, if i were a better programmer, I'd do it myself. All it would take would be adding mass data to all the bodies in the Sol system and some simple equations.

Comanches.

I think having the program compute gravitational effects on the observer would be a good idea. Having written n-body calculation programs myself, I know that leaving the planets and other large bodies in predefined orbits is a good thing. It would be nice to be able to realistically fly from one pla...