Celestia Forums

Tonight I made a most enthralling journey through space. I traveled through the Rosetta nebula, marvelling about all its reddish color variants; I visited the lovely planet Eden, then watched its clouds moving over its surface while it slowly drifted away. I observed a binary star system, sped up in time so I could follow the stars circling round eachother. Having learned a bit how to navigate Celestia's 'starship', and to temper its speed when needed, I next made a very close flypass of Saturn, approaching its rings under a tiny angle, then moving through it to Saturns surface, to pass it at an altitude of just a few kilometres. Finally I made it on my own from Saturn to Mars (not using the 'G' spot ) and stayed a while in its neighbourhood while watching its moons circling around it, with the sun occasionally appearing and disappearing in the distance.

Celestia is so much fun! And I realize I have only just begun to investigate its full potential. I feel very grateful that I found it.

Thank you Chris Laurel for such an adventurous and entertaining program.
Thank you Rasillon for the fantastic nebula's, planetary systems and other add-ons for Celestia.
Thank you Selden Ball for the excellent - and regrettably necessary - manual on installing add-ons for Celestia.
Thanks to all other Celestia contributors.

Paul

I would also like to thank everybody who has made Celestia possible.

I discovered it only 2 weeks ago and am showing it to everybody I meet.
I have demonstrated it to the science teacher at the local junior school and I hope she will be using it.

Celestia is awesome. Thank you.

(ps I am on Mac OS X, so additional thanks to all who ported the program)

I still thank Chris Fridger Christophe and the developers of Celestia all the time...without it my dreams would have never been born!

Well its partly to blame

Yes...Celestia is awesome! Thanks Chris, Rass (my inspiration to keep going!), Selden, Jack, TERRIER, Don, Fridger, Jens, Paul, praesepe...and all the Celestia developers and those who have helped me on the shuttle.

Celestia is such a mind blowing experience.

I've spent this evening with Saturn...I need to get Cassini it it's correct location...I'll get this off Jack's page later...off to NGC1999 next!

Regards to all on the forum...bh.

I'd like to thank the guys who made it too, It's just amazing

I've spent this evening with Saturn...I need to get Cassini it it's correct location...I'll get this off Jack's page later...off to NGC1999 next!

Yes bh, I reckon all the Saturn flybys are very awe inspiring, and since I've downloaded Franks excellent 'Life and Death of Stars', I'm finding that flying through different nebulae is great fun. Now I'm off to the Eskimo Nebula!

regards
TERRIER

I also would like to thank everyone involved in Celestia development. It's undoubtedly one of the best programs i've ever got involved in... I had never even tried 3d modelling before Celestia!

It's also got me interested in space & science once again - this was something I really loved when I was younger, but got out of it for a couple of years, but then got really back into it again when I started using Celestia.

Hey this is a BIG-UP Celestia thread, ... and why not.

Yes indeed thank you to everyone who has made Celstia Possible
And lets not forget all those that have contributed to Celstia too.
otherwise we would all still be useing the install version.

to this day I still do not know who all of the Developers are
as far as i know its Chris, Fridger, Christophe, and Grant.
there must be more...

Poor Chris is the one that everyone screams to when somthing is wrong

Paul,

A list of 10 developers who have contributed directly to Celestia itself is at http://sourceforge.net/project/memberlist.php?group_id=21302

I wish to thank not only the developers (the most thanks are due to them, of course), but also all the people here. I discovered Celestia during a bored evening at work, when nobody was calling, and I started to surf contributed packages in the Mandrake site. I was interested by the description of Celestia (I'm always interested in science/technology oriented stuff), and became speechless for several hours after seeing the first images (and it was with a cheap graphics card!!). Since then, I always show Celestia to anyone who has time to see it.
But the best was about to come: The great Celestia community. It's the nicest group of people i've ever found in Internet. All the beauty showed in the program and the add-ons surely reflects something about the insides of the people who made them.

It's always a pleasure for me to read the forum. If I had some more time, I would contribute something too. Maybe in the near future.

PS: I will never scream when I find a bug - I know a program is never perfect, nor made to fit all tastes.

selden wrote:Paul,

A list of 10 developers who have contributed directly to Celestia itself is at http://sourceforge.net/project/memberlist.php?group_id=21302

Hmmmm thanks Selden, you don't see many of those names around here...

Hey this is a BIG-UP Celestia thread, ... and why not.

Indeed, Yes, I've got to say a big thankyou to everyone involved with this marvelous program, and to anyone else in the CELESTIA community. Late last year the company I worked for, (for 14 years) went out of business, so with some of my redundancy money I decided to buy a cheap computer with a GF2 400 graphics card that had a pre-installed driver. I didn't want anything special, just something I could practice using 'Word' on, for Job applications, and also for using spreadsheets to keep records and statistics of various sports, and my video collection of every Simpsons episode!
I didn't even have a basic e-mail or internet connection, as I figured it wouldn't be necesssary. Eventually I decided to get a 'pay as you go' dial up connection, and use this sparingly for job related things only.
However it wasn't long before I thought about getting more use out of my computer, so I started surfing for free downloadable software.
I've always had an interest in the solar system, the voyager mission, skylab, and space flight in general since I was a kid, and remembering the brilliant 1999 series by the BBC called 'The Planets' which inspired me to purchase the accompanying book, I thought I'd look for a solar system simulator (which I thought would be unlikely) or some astronomy software.
In amongst the list on my search engine was this program called 'CELESTIA v1.2.5' at ~11MB, which I thought seemed rather large compared to the 2 to 3 MB of the other programs that were listed (none of which I can remember now!). Anyway I decided to download it, because the description of being able to fly through space and visit planets and stars in 3D was beyond my biggest expectations for a free program.....but I had a problem, I couldn't get it to work once I had installed it - just the start-up screen, and then CRASH!!!! So I gave up on it and installed one of the lesser 2D programs instead.
After a month or so, and a general tidy up of my computer, I thought about CELESTIA again, I REALLY WANTED a 3d space simulator, preferably for FREE! Luckily I found a version 1.2.4 to download. Thinking this would be different, I thought I'd give it a try, and to my suprise it worked (what I thought was perfectly!)...AND IT BLEW MY MIND!
There was a link to the homepage, which is where I found out about add-ons....I couldn't believe it, the program could get even BETTER, with 3d models and larger and more detailed planet textures, etc!!!!
I must admit that I wasn't interested in even looking at the forum at first, but in the search for more add-ons, they eventually led me to it. I must say what a pleasant and helpful place I've found it to be, not to mention a marvelous source of more add-ons!
At first, the most valuable knowledge I gained was in using the latest drivers for my graphics card. Immediately this improved my Celestia viewing performance and I was able to install and run version1.2.5.!...FANTASTIC, Celestia had just got even better...and it's never looked back since!
Since those early days, I've become a forum member, and like Jack, started a new hobby in 3D modeling. I've increased my interest in the
fantastic and extremely interesting subject of space and astronomy, that I've always had some time for, but never really followed too closely.
I've also improved my knowledge of the PC and Windows XP, (including upgrading my graphics card twice and connecting to broadband internet, who say's Celestia is FREE! ) ,and you never know, I might even get round to producing a website! Finally and most importantly, I've made some new friends....from outside of Yorkshire......
......CELESTIA is a true inspiration!

Here's to the future!

TERRIER

PS Oh yes, and the moral of this story is; don't buy a cheap PC with a pre-installed graphics card, you might not be as lucky as me!

TERRIER wrote:Indeed, Yes, I've got to say a big thankyou to everyone involved with this marvelous program, and to anyone else in the CELESTIA community. Late last year the company I worked for, (for 14 years) went out of business,
....... (etc etc)

Nice story Terrier!
I never thought my message would result in these kind of testimonies. But I am glad it did. Gives me a real community feeling.
Well... off to space again.

Paul

celestia consistently amazes me.. i discovered it i guess almost a year ago now, and it still floors me. running a fairly recent 1.3.1 CVS version. i'm very excited to see what the future has in store.