Message from a Newbie

[gemma.laming]

Hi everybody, my name is Gemma and I live in Holland. I studied physics at uni and love all things astronomical, there are other things I love too, but they are not the subject of these forums.

I downloaded Celsetia, and it is very nice - except that I cannot get a clear image: it is all disjointed and "cut up".

What am I doing wrong? What is wrong with my computer? How can I repair/alter things that make Celestia work for me?
I have a laptop running Vista (yuk) and I know a little about Computer graphics.
I looked around the forums to see if there was something like my problem in there but I cannot find it - if there is please let me know and I will use it! I know nothing about Graphics cards/chipsets, this was mentioned but it is beyond me. Sorry.
Can anybody help me please? With love to all on Earth, and those of you who are not, Gemma

PS I liked the bit about the colour of the sky to prove that you are Human - but what about other intelligent life-forms that are not human and wish to use these forums?

[Derek]

Hi Gemma,
Welcome to Celestia, to help you sort your problem we really need to know more about your laptop and more specifically the graphics side. More often than not problems reside with the graphics driver software and the version used. What laptop do you have. Which version of Vista this can be a problem, I'm running anumber of Celestia version on Vista Home Premium no problem. If you click on device manager in the control panel it lists what graphics cards or drivers plus versions of software, maybe you have friend with a bit more know how who can help you.

best of luck

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[gemma.laming]

Hi Derek and thankyou for your advice. I had been doing some delving and research into the things you mentioned when my computer crashed again and I decided enough was enough and took it back to the shop.
A friendly computer expert dumped a quality machine in my lap and withdrew a few hundred bucks from my purse - and the results for Celestia are spectacular. It is so nice to see things the way you imagine them to be. And you can still find your way home by pressing the H button. I love getting lost - but I am good at that even when I know the roads. Perhaps I need an H button in my car?
A question: when I press SHIFT+(arrow left) or (arrow right) it is possible to orbit the system you have centered on, but is it possible to slow this down about 10 times?
Again thanks for being so friendly, Gem

[gemma.laming]

Just to say thanks to John too. I'm tired and have been doing too much star gazing (but in the city the lights are too bright, I make do with my computer). Love Gem

[selden]

Gem,

It's good to know that Celestia works better for you now.

To slow down the rotation, you can edit the file celestia.cfg
It's a plain-text file in the main Celestia directory.
Change the value of RotateAcceleration from 120.0 to 12.0

Here's the relevant section of celestia.cfg:

Code: Select all

#------------------------------------------------------------------------
# RotateAcceleration defines the speed at which an object will be
# rotated in Celestia, when using a keypress, such as the left and right
# arrow keys. A higher value will rotate the object quicker, while a
# lower value will cause a slower rotation. The default value is 120.0.
#------------------------------------------------------------------------
  RotateAcceleration 120.0


Does this help?

[gemma.laming]

HI Selden,

thanks for the information about changing the speeds, only that my computer has a VIsta OS and this means that it cannot cope with much beyond "finger-counting" computing. In short, it said that it could not open a .cfg file as it did not know what to do with it, using the Windows help resource on the internet gave me the reply that Microsoft did not know what to do with such a file either.
Were I able to open the file I might be able to get somewhere with it. Any suggestions as to how to do this??!
At least I can enjoy your handiwork, and do. With a laptop in my cosy warm bed beats a telescope on the roof (in the winter at least!).
Thanks for your reply, I was slow getting back to you as I was setting up this new computer and trying to sort out my website.
Gem

[BobHegwood]

In short, it said that it could not open a .cfg file as it did not know what to do with it, using the Windows help resource on the internet gave me the reply that Microsoft did not know what to do with such a file either.

Gem,

You just have to tell Vista to use a version of notepad to open these .cfg files.
I'm using Notepad2, but any version will work okay. Do you not know how to
assign default programs for use in opening files?

Thanks, Brain-Dead Bob

[Guckytos]

HI Selden,

thanks for the information about changing the speeds, only that my computer has a VIsta OS and this means that it cannot cope with much beyond "finger-counting" computing. In short, it said that it could not open a .cfg file as it did not know what to do with it, using the Windows help resource on the internet gave me the reply that Microsoft did not know what to do with such a file either.
Were I able to open the file I might be able to get somewhere with it. Any suggestions as to how to do this??!
At least I can enjoy your handiwork, and do. With a laptop in my cosy warm bed beats a telescope on the roof (in the winter at least!).
Thanks for your reply, I was slow getting back to you as I was setting up this new computer and trying to sort out my website.
Gem

Hi Gem,

as goes for editing all different Celestia files (catalogue, config, etc.) all you need is a good text editor.
You can try with the built in Windods Notepad, but this can lead to problems as this piece of junk only knows M$ conventions (and not Mac or Linux ones, which are also used for addons).

Some built in thing thst should work is WordPad. Just open the program, then go to the open dialogue, navigate to the right folder, select as file type "all" and then open "celestia.cfg".

Another good (and free) text editor is notepad+ (not from M$ and thus working far better).

Under Vista you could have trouble with saving the files. But there is somewhere here a thread from Bob Hedgewood about Vista issues and how to cope with them.

Edit: Darn, Bob beat me to it.

Best regards,

Guckytos

[BobHegwood]

You can try with the built in Windods Notepad, but this can lead to problems as this piece of junk only knows M$ conventions (and not Mac or Linux ones, which are also used for addons).

Trust me... Notepad2.exe... Freeware and source is included.
Works on all versions of Windows, and has NO problems handling
Celestia's special requirements concerning line feeds, formatting,
special characters, etc.

Thanks, Bob

[t00fri]

You can try with the built in Windods Notepad, but this can lead to problems as this piece of junk only knows M$ conventions (and not Mac or Linux ones, which are also used for addons).

Trust me... Notepad2.exe... Freeware and source is included.
Works on all versions of Windows, and has NO problems handling
Celestia's special requirements concerning line feeds, formatting,
special characters, etc.

Thanks, Bob

Bob's advice is certainly good. I tried notepad2 quite extensively and agree that it is a neat light-weight editor that avoids all the stupidities of the original notepad. For programming, it also has a nice syntax highlighting. For some, it might be a disadvantage that it cannot handle several files at once via tabs.

Fridger

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[gemma.laming]

Hi Guys, I thought I had submitted a reply to you, it seems to have gotten lost?

THANKS for the ideas, I really appreciate the speed at which you guys look after a newcomer!

I have edited the speed down to 10 (from 120) as Selden suggested a while ago, but having done that the movement is now rather "bitty", is there anything (easy with me!) I can do about this. To me the majesty of the universe is its graceful movement.

I have to thank you guys again, keeping you from star-gazing! Gem

[selden]

Gem,

I assume that by "bitty" you mean that you can see jumps from one frame to the next.

What FPS is Celestia managing to draw?

Jumps are particularly noticable if your computer is drawing fewer than about 15 frames per second. Celestia will display in the lower left corner of its window the number of frames that it is drawing per second (FPS) if you type the key ` (accent grave or backward apostrophe). It usually is on the same key as the tilde (~). If you have a keyboard which supports diacritical marks, you may need to type a <space> after the `.

A low fps usually is caused by your computer being slow to draw each frame. In other words, it probably can be improved either by upgrading your computer and its graphics hardware or by reducing the number of things that Celestia has to draw (e.g. by removing Addons or by removing high-resolution surface textures for the Earth).

Celestia also pauses briefly the first time it has to load an Addon as it comes in to view. This kind of jump usually happens only once for each Addon, though.

[gemma.laming]

Thanks for that, Selden.

I cannot tell you how nice it is to have such speedy help. I will try your suggestions, but it is years since I typed anything in French - and I use a NL keyboard where the accent grave lies above the tab button. I will see how it goes.

As to upgrading... I just did, a new computer yesterday. Its wonderful to use for Celestia, but I think most of the problems are with me trying to learn how to make it what I would like to see.

When I was a kid I was invited to the flight deck of the aircraft (I couldn't sleep) and I saw the dawn coming across the earth as we flew towards it. Not something to forget! Telescopes do much the same thing for me.

Thanks again for making it work for me. Gem

[selden]

Gem,

My guess about slow framerates might be wrong.

Please try a slightly different value for RotateAcceleration. On my computer, I discovered just now that although a value of 12 does show a slight jitter, a value of 10 doesn't. On my computer, Celestia claims to have an fps of about 30 while using the arrow keys to orbit around the Earth.

[gemma.laming]

Hi Selden,
I have done as you suggested and pressed the accent grave for a while and it came up with the following (but this is a translation from the Dutch):
Busy with loading of drawing from filetextures/medres/earth.png
making of tiled texture breadth=2048 max =1024

busy wit hloading of drawing from filetextures/medres/earth-clouds.png
making of normal texture 1024x512

and so on, but nothing much to do with M66! Any ideas why, and how do I get to see M66 (or M67, M68 even) without these? Are these the adons you were talking of? I don't need an Earth addon to view a galaxy, or do I?

Thanks Gem

[gemma.laming]

Hi Selden, thanks for the info about frame-speeds, I will see what my machine does with 12, 11 and the rest!

I went to visit Hubble (one of my favourite websites too) and orbited it, and it was wonderful, no glitches or judders. I will visit M66 again and see what I can do.

Gem

[selden]

Hi Selden,
I have done as you suggested and pressed the accent grave for a while and it came up with the following (but this is a translation from the Dutch):

You are seeing Celestia's console log.
That means that Celestia thinks you typed a tilde (~). A tilde tells Celestia to display its console log, showing a history of what it has been doing. It often contains error messages which can help to find problems in Addons. While the console log is being shown, you can type the up-arrow and down-arrow keys to go backward (up) and forward (down) in the log. The console log will disappear when you type a tilde again.

and so on, but nothing much to do with M66! Any ideas why, and how do I get to see M66 (or M67, M68 even) without these? Are these the adons you were talking of? I don't need an Earth addon to view a galaxy, or do I?

Celestia does include a catalog of galaxies. When It is loaded, Celestia's console log shows the message
Loaded 11087 deep space objects
(or a similar large number)
That message should be near the top (beginning) of the console log. You can use the up-arrow key to scroll up through the log until you can see that message..

To select M66, you can type the following to Celestia:
[enter]M 66[enter]
where [enter] is the large key at the right edge of the main keyboard.
Be sure to type a <space> between M and 66
While you are typing M 66, across the bottom of Celestia's window you should see a list of other galaxy catalog numbers which start with the same letters. When you type the second [enter], you should see the following appear in the upper left corner of Celestia's window:
M 66 / NGC 3627 / UGC 6346 / MCG 2-29-19
along with some other information.

You can then type a G to go to the galaxy and see it close up.

Celestia's galaxy catalog does not include the detailed photographs that you may be used to. Instead, it shows symbolic representations of the various galaxy types E0, SB1, etc. Some detailed pictures of galaxies are available as Addons on the Celestia MotherLode.

I hope this clarifies things a little.

p.s. No, you don't need a high-resolution Earth texture to see galaxies. I was using that as an example of something that would make Celestia run very slowly and might cause the jitter that you reported. Sorry to confuse you.