NGC1999 - help please

[bh]

Hello Celestians...
A visit to the Hubble site yesterday reminded me of one of my fave add-ons, Rassilon's V380 featuring NGC1999.
I downloaded V380.zip from
http://www.celestiaproject.net/~rassilon/

But I've no idea how to install, things have moved on a pace since I last had this.

Any help greatly appreciated.

[selden]

V380 has several problems. Here are some of the things needed to fix it.

1. download and expand v380.zip as extras\v380
2. download v380_patch.zip
3. delete the extras directory that's inside the v380 directory, along with all of its contents (obsolete ssc and stc file)
4. put the contents of v380_patch.zip into extras\v380 (dsc,ssc and stc files)
5. edit v380.stc so that it contains

Code: Select all

# V380 Ori
Star 300005 "V380 Ori" {
        RA 83.98
        Dec -6.43
        Distance 1499.5
        SpectralType "A2Ia"
        AppMag 10.5

   Texture "V380.jpg"

}


6 edit v380.ssc
Delete the entire first entry, the one which starts with "V380 Ori" "V380 Ori"

7 Run Celestia
8 goto V380 Ori

enjoy!


Note: on my system, the surface of the star V380 is not being rendered. I'm not sure why. There are no relevant error messages, but it's a blank white. This is most likely a bug in the version of Celestia that I'm running.

[bh]

Selden, many, many thanks... it's as beautiful as I remember.

Great instructions, well done. How did you work it out? trial and error?

Oh... is there a way to view the companions?

Bob.

[selden]

Selden, many, many thanks... it's as beautiful as I remember.

Great instructions, well done. How did you work it out? trial and error?

I grok ssc

The major problem is the age of the Addon: Addons for Celestia v1.2.4 had to be structured quite differently from what works best for v1.6.0. As a result, the V380 Addon has ssc and stc files in an extras subdirectory in the zip file.

This age issue (among others) is discussed on the Web page
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celest ... intro.html

After putting the catalog files in the right place, Celestia still didn't show anything. When I looked at Celestia's console log file (type a tilde to see it), it was complaining that V380 wasn't defined.

When I looked at the STC and SSC files, I immediately saw that they were doing things that are not valid when used with Celestia v1.6. So I fixed them. I only looked at the beginning of the SSC file, so there might be other issues.

Oh... is there a way to view the companions?

Bob.

I'm not sure what you mean by "companions". There are quite a few planets and moons orbiting V380 in the addon. They are readily visible in the many usual ways (I like to use the solar system browser). You have to enable Nebula rendering to see the included NGC1999 nebula.

p.s. If by "companions" you mean the additional stars of the system, then don't forget that they're defined as planets with "emissive true" enabled. A modern version of the Addon would define them as real light-emitting stars in an STC catalog. The v1.2.4 emissive-true workaround does still work, although it has the same limitation that it's always had: the additional "stars" don't actually illuminate anything.

[bh]

Hello Selden, yes, I'm not able to view the planets. They don't show in the browser at all.

Here's Hathor's opening declaration...

"Hathor" "V380 Ori"

Is this correct?

[bh]

Sorry... I still need help here. I cannot view the planets.

[selden]

bh,

Yes, Hathor should be the first definition in the SSC file.

If you aren't seeing anything, I'd expect there to be some error messages in Celestia's console log.
Type a ~ (tilde = shift ` on my keyboard) to see it and use the arrow keys to navigate up and down in it.
You'll need to scroll up near the beginning. (You may need to type on the Space bar after typing the tilde if your Windows installation supports diacritical marks.)

For ease of debugging, you should eliminate all of the other Addons from the Celestia installation that you're using to test the V380 addon.

[bh]

I reinstated the declaration on step 6 of your instructions above... all is working fine now, thanks.

[selden]

by,

That's great!

I'll assume it was an invisible typo.
Some non-printing characters can cause problems for Celestia