Celestia Forums

Why is it that the programmers of Celestia chose Io to begin the program? And why is it always the dark side of Io? Why that choice?

Anonymous wrote:Why is it that the programmers of Celestia chose Io to begin the program? And why is it always the dark side of Io? Why that choice?

On what time interval is your "experience with Io's dark side " based?;-)

You are welcome to change the start-up script yourself. Very easy. Just have a look at

http://www.celestiaproject.net/celestia/docs/scripting.html

My Celestia does NOT start up with Io. It starts up with Callisto, ahem...

Bye Fridger

yeah, thanks I just changed mine to Mars. Much, much better.

and I don't see what the time interval thing is supposed to mean. Io is always dark at the start of the program, no matter when. But then I can move my space ship around the moon to the other side and then it's not dark.

it does change. open celestia. and without moving change the date to many years before or after. you will see a difference.

Your viewpoint always arrives at Io by flying in from the same position in the sky - in celestial coordinates, 12hrs right ascension and zero declination. It so happens that Jupiter is at present on that side of the Sun, so you're approaching the Jupiter system from its dark side. As El Pelado says, in a few years time Jupiter will have moved to the other side of the Sun, and you'll always arrive in daylight.

Grant

I find it weird that they picked a spot that will be in darkness for the next six years as their starting point. Personally, I would have gone for something more interesting.

I just have to put the space ship on the opposite side of Io and I see it in daylight. Why not have picked that site as a starting point instead?

Is there another reason to have chosen this particular point in the solar system as the default starting point?

I personally believe that the reason Io is chosen as the startup location is that Io is the first of four moons discovered to be orbiting another planet by Galileo in 1610. Thus, as the discovery of these moons by a telescope represented a major first in the study of astronomy, Celestia represents a major first in the study of the universe. Of course, this is just my opinion, I could be wrong.

maybe that's the reason they picked Io, but it doesn't explain why they chose a spot that places Io in the dark for the next six years when they could of easily picked a spot that places Io in the daylight (just on the other side of the moon).

I would guess that Io was chosen because it is one of the most visually interesting locations in the Solar System. Io itself is quite colorful, and Jupiter looms large. The startup script doesn't take lighting conditions into consideration (although it could, of course), so the lighting at startup is simply a coincidence due to the current time. Since the startup script can be easily changed, this wouldn't seem to be a big issue.

- Hank

granthutchison wrote:Your viewpoint always arrives at Io by flying in from the same position in the sky - in celestial coordinates, 12hrs right ascension and zero declination. It so happens that Jupiter is at present on that side of the Sun, so you're approaching the Jupiter system from its dark side. As El Pelado says, in a few years time Jupiter will have moved to the other side of the Sun, and you'll always arrive in daylight.

Grant

Is there a way to change that starting position - ie to fly in from some other angle? I couldn't find anything in the start.cel file that covered this (there was lots of stuff commented out though).

maybe(i dont know if its possible) you can put in the script to fisrt fo to the sun, and then quickly to io. then you will see it. is this possible?

ElPelado wrote: maybe(i dont know if its possible) you can put in the script to fisrt fo to the sun, and then quickly to io. then you will see it. is this possible?

Yes, it's possible adding these lines to start.cel:


before:


Note: You may adjust the "wait " time to minimize the time in Sol, although a too small value would have the same effect as to not going to Sol at all (four works for me, but three doesn't)

a tryed with wait duration 4, 3, 2 and 1, and only with the 1 is like going directly to io. with 2 it also works good.

ElPelado wrote:a tryed with wait duration 4, 3, 2 and 1, and only with the 1 is like going directly to io. with 2 it also works good.

See, you don't have a bad machine at all...

YES I DO HAVE A BAD MACHINE
i need:
-a better video card
-a new hard disk(it seems that this one has a fisical problem)
-more RAM(and maybe a new mother board)
-windows XP

I have also pondered this....could it be that a programmer just likes the binaryness of Io.... I changed my start to Earth, as it seemed a good place to start from, I just pasted in "Sol/Earth" to the start cel instead of Io.