Celestia Forums

Well, this is probably a very noob like question and it may sound dumb but where to find and how to add for example new textures, more real life planets, stars or catalogues or even better more galaxies, star clusters, nebulae or exoplanets?

Truth is the original Celestia resources are by now very out of date (Pluto and Charon for example). I know about the existence of the Motherlode, here on this forum there are great addons too. However what is lacking is a single thread about every addon created or something like this (including compatible versions information). I will be glad to do it but I'm afraid that I will miss something...

Also, there are a lot of tutorials about how to create stuff but (maybe I'm missing it) there isn't a single one about installing stuff into Celestia. or it's too easy for a tutorial, I don't know, maybe it's just me?

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The thoughts from above are probably for their own thread, my idea here is this: What are, let's say, the top things you should do after a fresh Celestia install? How you can do it and from where you can get them?
And just to be clear - Celestia Origin is AWESOME but let's pretend we don't know about it yet (it's very big and in my case I prefer smaller addons with fewer stuff to begin with). What are your suggestions and tips?

Thanks in advance!

Georgi wrote:Truth is the original Celestia resources are by now very out of date (Pluto and Charon for example).

The data will be updated in the final release of 1.6.2, it's just taking a long time...

Georgi wrote:However what is lacking is a single thread about every addon created or something like this (including compatible versions information).

I do have a thread listing addons posted on the forum, most of which are for 1.6.x.

Georgi wrote:Also, there are a lot of tutorials about how to create stuff but (maybe I'm missing it) there isn't a single one about installing stuff into Celestia. or it's too easy for a tutorial, I don't know, maybe it's just me?

Most addons can be installed by just putting the addon files in the "extras" directory, as explained here. If there's something else you have to do, there's usually a readme file that says so.

Georgi wrote:What are, let's say, the top things you should do after a fresh Celestia install? How you can do it and from where you can get them?

• For Solar System updates, maybe Project Echoes (I should probably upload the zip file on that thread, since DeviantArt restricted downloads to members at some point...) (Edit: done)
• Replace your stars.dat with Andrew Tribick's one, which includes about 2.5 million stars using Gaia DR2 data. Maybe replace starnames.dat with this updated version; same for nearstars.stc. Replace the default exoplanet files with Sirius_Alpha's ones. (Note that all these updates will be included in the final 1.6.2 release.)
• LukeCEL has made some great addons, particularly his binary star catalog, sprite nebulae, and extragalactic stars.

Thank you, SevenSpheres, I definitely missed your topic (as I thought).

Looks like the installation of the addons is not that hard and by the way you have some gorgeous textures in Project Echoes at first glance. I'm glad to hear that the final version of 1.6.2 will have updated textures, this is one thing less to do and thanks for your suggestions.

Georgi wrote:by the way you have some gorgeous textures in Project Echoes at first glance.

Project Echoes isn't mine...but yeah, the textures are great; 1.6.2 final will probably include most of them.

SevenSpheres wrote:Project Echoes isn't mine...but yeah, the textures are great; 1.6.2 final will probably include most of them.

Very interesting... and I'm waiting for impatiently the final version.