Celestia Forums

Hi all. After five years, I finally found the time to update all of the educational activities for Celestia for 2017. They use Celestia 161-ED, a specialized version of Celestia 161 that includes sound and Lua Edu tools. The updates took a month to prepare and include additions of new spacecraft, edits of what spacecraft such as the Mercury Express, Curiosity, Cassini, Dawn, New Horizons and Juno have found on Mercury, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto and their moons, and revisions to hundreds of facts regarding the broader universe. The updates also now include answers to all of the questions posed in the student worksheets.

You can find the new updates on the educational page of motherlode, here: http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/educational.php

Be aware that to use the new files, it is best to save what you wish from older files, then uninstall Celestia 160-ED and reinstall Celestia 161-ED.

Special thanks to the great folks who did those new spacecraft addons, and to Selden Ball for his exhaustive help in testing out the new zip files, and to Ulrich Dickmann for his expertise in revising the webpage.

Enjoy. Post any comments you wish about the updates below.

Frank G

It wont download for me...
it says its 2G but when I try downloading it, it starts downloading 3.3G and stops at 2G then says it failed to download.
how can I fix this?

Are you running a 32bit or 64bit operating system and/or browser?

Some 32bit file systems and programs might have problems when downloading files larger than 2GB.

Unfortunately, the 2GB size value shown on the Motherlode Web site is due a bug in the site's database software. The Zip is indeed 3.3 GB.

I'm not sure if I have 32 or 64. it probably is 32 as I am on a laptop for the time being and its 3 years old so that could be my problem...

It really depends on the CPU chip in the computer, or, if you're running the 64 bit version of Windows, whether you're running the 34-bit or 64-bit version of your browser. For example, my 6 year old Dell laptop has a Core i7 CPU and is running the 64 bit version of Windows 7. I was able to download the Zip file using the current 64 bit version of Firefox.

To find out which version of Windows 7 you have (I'm rashly assuming that's what you're running), open the "System Properties" window and look at its second (System) section. The line which says "System Type" should say either "32-bit Operating System" or "64-bit Operating System". To open the "System Properties" window, left-button-click on the "Windows Globe" (usually at the left end of the taskbar and select the option "Computer" in the right-hand column. Select "System Properties" in the row of options near the top of the new, unlabeled window which that opens.

The 32-bit version of Firefox used to be the one installed by default, even for 64 bit versions of Windows. If you're running a 64 bit version of Windows, you can explicitly install the 64 bit version of Firefox. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switch-32-bit-64-bit

Hi. The Celestia161-ED install file is actually 3.3 GB in size, and 7.5 GB unzipped. Most of that size is due to a single add-on present in the "extras" folder of Celestia161-ED. That add-on is called "VT Earth". Unzipped, it is almost 6 GB of the 7.5 GB. I could remove it from the education package, or remove it from the main install file and provide it as a separate zip file.

I don't want to remove it, because it really jazzes up the beauty of Earth. It adds very detailed HD textures to the planet. Before I split the install file into two parts, I need to confirm that 32 bit machines will not successfully download the 3.3 GB zipped install file. Could anyone reading this who has a 32 bit machine, please visit the motherlode education page at: http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/educational.php

Try to download the "Celestia161-ED" install file. You don't have to install it, just see if it downloads successfully (you can then discard it). Tell me if your 32 bit machine also stalls and fails to download the file. Also, it is very important for us to understand if this is a browser problem. If you stall and cannot download the big file, please tell us what version of Windows, and what version of your browser you have. Selden explained how to identify the Windows version. To identify your browser version, simply pull down the "about" tab at the top of the browser, and learn if it is a 32 bit or 64 bit program. It will say so directly.

Thanks

Frank

I'm on windows 10. not 7

@ JediTrekkie:
Did you format your HHD as FAT? -> The 3.3 GB download will fail.
Do you have enough disk space on your HDD? -> The download will fail when HDD gets full.
Are you using Internet Explorer 6 for download? -> The 3.3 GB download will fail (Use IE 7 or higher instead).

The question still is:
Are you running a 32bit or 64bit operating system and/or browser?

Adirondack