New User and a small problem

[JohnnyGnote]

Hello to all, I'm new to Celestia but not new to Astronomy or Space, one of my greatest loves. I have to say Celestia is quite wonderful and I'm very happy to have found it. I showed it to my 4 year old son and he was quite amazed (he's a big Star Wars fan). Now on to the problem. I noticed that there is no Neptune or Uranus, Pluto is there but the other 2 are not. Can anyone let me know what's up with that? I would appreciate any help on this. Thanks in advance and thanks to the author for a wonderful ware.

J

[selden]

They're visible on my system.

Exactly what do you mean by "they're not there"?
What method do you use to try to view them?
Exactly what happens?

What version of Celestia are you running?
Exactly what kind of computer system do you have?
Operating system, CPU type, memory, graphics card model?

My old system:
256MB 500MHz P3, WinXP Pro SP2
128MB FX5700LE, Forceware 67.66
Celestia v1.3.2, v1.4.0pre6

[JohnnyGnote]

(Exactly what do you mean by "they're not there"?
What method do you use to try to view them?
Exactly what happens?)

The name labels appear as all the other bodies do but there is no graphic to travel to. I can see all the other planets but those.

As far as method to view them I only know the method that is default to the ware. As I said the graphic images of all the planets as well as the sun and the moons and stars are there on my screen. I even replaced the images of Saturns rings with the addon from MOtherload site and all is well the new images of the rings are much better. I have even been to the moonsw of Saturn, Jupiter and seen Casini, But no Neptune or Uranus.

(What version of Celestia are you running? )

The most recent at the home page download site.
Celestia 1.3.2

(Exactly what kind of computer system do you have?
Operating system, CPU type, memory, graphics card model? )

1.1gb mhz AMD Duron
512 mb ram
Nvididia Riva TNT2 model 64/Pro model
Win 2000

The system is more than adequate ( I built it) and I'm fairly capable with over 30 years of computer experience. The ware seems to operate fine just that there is nothing where Neptune and Uranus should be, the names appear but no object to travel to. Hope that is sufficient info, Thanks for the response

Footnote:

I tried using the goto option in the drawdown bar and tried going to uranus and neptune the cooridinates come up and the ware travels to the coordinates, the names appear but there are no graphics visible.

[selden]

That's really strange.

The only reason that I can think of that they wouldn't be shown is if it couldn't load the model into the graphics card for some reason. But it's exactly the same spherical model as is used for all the other planets. And your card has 64MB of memory, which should be plenty. If it couldn't load the texture I'd expect that you'd see white globes, not nothing at all.
(Is there any chance they're actually black globes? Is there anything blocking the stars?)

Have you tried turning on Celestia's console log?
It might include some hint.

Type a ~ (tilde) and use up- and down-arrows to navigate it. You should see text about the various catalogs being loaded into memory.

[JohnnyGnote]

Thanks Seldon, I'll absolutely try that and let you know what happens, I really appreciate your help on this. Both those planets are a couple of my favorites.

Much appreciation,
J

[JohnnyGnote]

OK Seldon here's the log, I had to retype it, I couldn't find a way to copy it from the ware, any how here it is. It appears there are a few errors. I was thinking of reinstalling.

Error in .ssc file: (line 79): parent body 'OGLE-TR-56' of 'b' not found
Error in .ssc file: (line 84): bad alternate surface
Error in .ssc file: (line 119): parent body 'OGLE-TR-113' of 'b' not found
Error in .ssc file: (line 124): bad alternate surface
Error in .ssc file: (line 160): parent body 'OGLE-TR-132' of 'b' not found
Error in .ssc file: (line 165): bad alternate surface
Error in .ssc file: (line 380): parent body 'TYC-5503-946-1' of 'b' not found
Error in .ssc file: (line 385): bad alternate surface
Error in .ssc file: (line 3394): parent body 'PSR-1257+12' of 'b' not found
Error in .ssc file: (line 3399): bad alternate surface
Error in .ssc file: (line 3427): parentbody 'PSR-1257+2' of 'c' not found
Error in .ssc file: (line 3432): bad alternate surface
Error in .ssc file: (line 3460): parent body 'PSR-1620-26' of 'd' not found
Error in .ssc file: (line 3465): bad alternate surface
Error in .ssc file: (line 3494): parent body 'PSR-1620-26' of 'b' not found
Error in .ssc file: (line 3499): bad alternate surface
Loading Solar System catalog extras/minormoons.jpg
Loading image from file textures/flare.jpg
Loading image from file textures/logo.jpg
Loading image from file textures/medres/earth.png
Loading image from file textures/medres/earth-clouds.png
Loading image from file textures/medres/moon.jpg
Loading image from file textures/medres/gstar.jpg

Let me know what you think.

Thanks
J

[selden]

Those error messages are "minor". They're caused by not having a copy of "extrasolar.stc". Some of the stars that have been discovered to have planets aren't included in stars.dat. Unfortunately, I don't think reinstalling Celestia v1.3.2 will fix them. I think that extrasolar.stc was added to Celestia after 1.3.2 was finalized. You can download it from http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/celestia/celestia/data/extrasolar.stc?rev=1.3&view=log

[selden]

If you tell Celestia to GoTo Neptune, the log file should include a line saying that it had loaded neptune.jpg or that it had tried and failed.

[JohnnyGnote]

Joy of Joys, I uninstalled Celestia completely purged my registry of any entries having to do with Celestia and reinstalled and low and behold The 2 unseen planets are there. I guess there must have been some glitch in my first install. Who knows. Well anyway thanks for your help Seldon, I learned some very valuable info just in our short5 interaction. Much appreciation for your time and help.

J