Celestia Forums

I was wondering if celestia has won any awards. I always read
about Starry night and the awards it wins. I think that Starry night
is very good in many ways but when it comes to the beauty of our solar system there is no comparison. Starry night 4.0 (latest version)
just has generic moons. Phobos for example is round with a few
craters, that's it! Celestia can give you the feeling that you are out
there. It's incredible. If starry night deserves awards then Celestia
deserves ten times those awards. If anyone knows let me
know.

A huge Celestia fan

That is what usually happens; open-source software never gets the attention it deserves. It’s always the commercial software that gets all the praise. They being a commercial software companies can afford the cost of advertising were Celestia relies on the web and word of mouth mostly. Given time Celestia will prove itself the better choice in the end. At least that’s how I feel about it.

Don.

Would it be impossible to get an astronomy magazine to have a review or feature about Celestia? I've got an issue of Sky and Telescope with an article about free software... just a thought.

It could be a little matter of time, as soon at you scholars start using it in educational activities, such as the ones fsgregs and Andrea are doing... If the NASA projects is adequately publicited (and translated too!!), soon Celestia would be widely known.

I'm not sure, though, if this would be too stressing for chris and the forum...

There have already been two reviews of Celestia in Sky & Telescope: one paragraph in the Screen Shots section in the July 2002 issue, and a full page and a half review in the Dec 2002 issue. The review was mixed, but it was still neat to see Celestia featured in a major popular astronomy publication.

--Chris

chris, you awake?? I thought it was late night at USA right now...

Oh just tested it... Early morning, in fact.. Good breakfast!!

Oh, no!! It's Seattle, late night now!!

i dont find the adress of the page of the nasa project. can someone give it to me??

As fsgregs said a week ago, it's a WIP, scheduled to release to the public in one or two months. Selden posted though, several links related to the site:

TIE 3D project: http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/projects/fy03/tiet3d.html
Project's goals: http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/pds/pds/TIE%20PDS.pdf
Latest review (doc file): http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/pds/report/FY03-Q2-TIE.doc

i was asking for the page with the NASA activites for Celestia.
i think that the page is http://exp.arc.nasa.gov/celestia/
but i cannot enter.

ElPelado wrote:i was asking for the page with the NASA activites for Celestia.
i think that the page is http://exp.arc.nasa.gov/celestia/
but i cannot enter.

Perhaps this is what you are looking for?

http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/celestia/

Works for me, at least.

Your other link is a bit premature, I think (or maybe a mistake as the one you noted on the key chart).

The NASA LT project is very excited to be using Celestia, and leverage the fine work that has been done so far by so many of you. The NASA LT (Learning Technologies) is an Agency wide program funded by the NASA education office (NEO - no Matrix jokes please!). In brief LT adapts new and emerging technologies to the education community our specific target is middle school age children, but our mandate is K-grey education. Our current projects are under the "EXperential Platform (EXP - NASA just love acronyms.) The goal is to have an integrated suite of products with the visual impact and compelling nature of a video game that can deliver the best real data the NASA can offer. These tools can then be used by educators to develop educational materials.

The overall reasons for this investment on NASA part is mostly selfish. There is a shortage of qualified professionals in STEM (Science Technology
Engineering Math). NASA (and the USA) can't maintain economic and technological leadership in the world unless we have more young people
getting degrees. The idea is the EXP will be a suite of interrelated tools(games?) that cover the range of NASA data sets - Celestia and our add on - (Solar system explorer) for the Galaxy and Solar system, a planet viewer for the Earth Moon and Mars.

We have various websites, some of them that have mentioned above, that discuss some of the aspects of EXP and NEO - /exp/ /neo/ /celestia/.
on http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/ We have been in discussion with several members of the Celestia community about futute developments and collaborations. We are starting to promote Celestia as a useful tool for NASA speakers and educators to use when making presentations to the public. We are begining to promote Celestia to the education community.
This summer will see an increase in activity as we try to spread the word.

Well - that's all for now but if you want to see a fun movie trailer go to

http://learn.arc.nasa.gov/neo/

Celestia was reviewed favorably on TechTV with a link to download on their website!

Hi

Not award but...

I've read a short review of Celestia in the Hungarian Amateur Astronomists mag called 'Meteor' this year as far as I remeber, and another Computer Mag has also a short description and the program with some add-ons on their attached CD.

Bye

docens

chris wrote:The review was mixed ...

I recall it as being pretty positive - it's what led me here in the first place.
They wrote that Celestia was a worthy successor to Dance of the Planets, which is high praise as far as I'm concerned.
(Although I recall I did have to help Tom Ligon get Uranus the right way around in Dance )

Grant

It's good to know that Celestia will get the credit it
deserves.