Celestia User's Guide 1.3.1 now available

[don]

In the Introduction to Celestia section, second paragraph...

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His vision and dedication gave birth to a program that is unlike any other planetarium program in existence.

Celestia is a space simulation program, not a planetarium program. Planetarium programs are usually limited to looking up, while Celestia gives you freedom of movement through the entire universe, to look in any direction you want.

I do hearby SIT corrected on this one! From the User's FAQ ...

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Q19: How can I make Celestia work like a planetarium? I want to see how the sky should look from my backyard.

A19:
0) Select the body from which to observe; the Earth maybe
1) use the GoTo menu to specify your Longitude and Latitude and GoTo there
2) type a y =Sync Orbit
3) type a Ctrl-G =GotoSurface under Windows
or
3) type a Ctrl-S =GotoSurface under Linux
4) type a Ctrl-F =change Arrow keys to AltAzimuth mode

Unfortunately, there is not (yet) an alt-az coordinate system display, but typing a ; will turn on the equatorial coordinate system display.
_________________
Selden
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Thanks to Selden for keeping the FAQ very up-to-date!

-Don G.

[Brendan]

Introduction to Celestia, paragraph 2...

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... to visit stars circling the center of the Milky Way beyond the confines of our Sun.

Celestia's star database does not contain any stars in the center of the Milky Way. Rather, it contains stars only in our "neighborhood", on the outside arm of the Milky Way. Here's how to see this...

* Turn up magnitude all the way with the ] key.

* Goto Earth.

* Press and hold the End key until you can see the spiral arms of the Milky Way.

Doesn't the sun and all of the stars in stars.dat orbit the center of the galaxy? A star circling the center of the galaxy doesn't have to be near the center like Pluto still orbiting the sun even if it's far away. Maybe it could say that you can visit stars up to x numbers of light years away.

Brendan

[don]

Doesn't the sun and all of the stars in stars.dat orbit the center of the galaxy?

If you want to stretch the reality of that statement to it's absolute limits, sure. However, according to Celestia, the distance between the Earth and the center of the Milky Way is 26000 Light Years. That sure is one heck of a radius for an orbit!

-Don G.

[Gordon]

Hello Frank,

Nice job again !

You do not mention NASA anymore, is there a specific reason for that ?

bye

Gordon

ps : I noticed a mistake in the last (!) line : it's Ctrl+C not +S

[TERRIER]

Yep, nice work Frank.

I notice on page 30 you may soon want to change this statement...

Until Part 2 is complete, you can find links to hundreds of add-ons within the Celestia forum, a chat room of over 700 users and developers of Celestia.

to;
"......a chat room of over 1000 users and developers of Celestia."

I'm also wondering if it will be worth stating that to toggle Comet Name labels is 'shift+w', whilst toggling asteroid labels is 'w'. (Cheers Chris!)

And also the Goto Surface feature; 'Ctrl+G' ?

regards
TERRIER

[fsgregs]

An updated, updated version of the Guide is now on my website, to reflect changes made in response to the last several posts here. I've fixed/added and modifed several items, including the addition of several key links to take readers to some of the more comprehensive add-on websites.

Thanks to everyone for your comments and editing.



Frank

[DrOsborn]

This is a user guide for Celestia 1.3.1. But I can not find 1.3.1 on the download page. The guide gives a link to the download page, but the most recent version there is 1.3.0. Can someone direct me to the new version?

DrOsborn

[Darkmiss]

Keep this page bookmarked
As here you will find all the new Pre-releases. The latest version is 131-Pre9

http://ennui.shatters.net/celestia/files/?C=M&O=D