Celestia Forums

I know this probably sounds just a bit whiney, but is there any alt. textures for Pluto and Charon? They look pretty silly as they are now (well, IMHO, at least).

Unfound wrote:I know this probably sounds just a bit whiney, but is there any alt. textures for Pluto and Charon? They look pretty silly as they are now (well, IMHO, at least).

Silly is perhaps not exactly the right expression, since the official Pluto&Charon textures incorporate the latest and MOST sophisticated measurements of the surface albedo that we have right now. Even the color is directly matched to the latest measurements.

I have made the official Pluto and Charon textures using
maps created and published by Marc Buie at Lowell Observatory. Buie's maps were generated from photometric data gathered during six years of mutual occultations of Pluto and Charon.

Celestia is supposed to be a most realistic space simulation based on scientific facts as they come along.

You will surely find some more exciting texture among the available add-ons that will look "less silly" to YOU.

Bye Fridger

Fridger wrote:You will surely find some more exciting texture among the available add-ons that will look "less silly" to YOU.

Go easy on him/her Fridger,

By the sounds of things this person didn't know all the effort that goes into the offical Celestia Pluto & Charon textures and therefore saw them as sort of undetailed and a bit boring, or "silly" as they put it.
Please try to be a bit more understanding in the future with any other new people that come along and ask similar questions.

unfound wrote:I know this probably sounds just a bit whiney...

Hi Unfound,

It didn't sound whiney to me.
If you have any more questions on Celestia, don't be afraid to ask through this forum. There's a lot of helpful people here to help you if you need them.

If you look for them you can find speculative Pluto (and possibly Charon) textures on the Celestia Motherlode site, here's a link to it: http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/

- Michael

Michael Kilderry wrote:

Fridger wrote:You will surely find some more exciting texture among the available add-ons that will look "less silly" to YOU.

Go easy on him/her Fridger,

By the sounds of things this person didn't know all the effort that goes into the offical Celestia Pluto & Charon textures and therefore saw them as sort of undetailed and a bit boring, or "silly" as they put it.
Please try to be a bit more understanding in the future with any other new people that come along and ask similar questions.

unfound wrote:I know this probably sounds just a bit whiney...

Hi Unfound,

It didn't sound whiney to me.
If you have any more questions on Celestia, don't be afraid to ask through this forum. There's a lot of helpful people here to help you if you need them.

- Michael

Sorry Michael,

but according to my understanding of English at least, my above answer was entirely informative. NOTHING else. If he/she was unaware of the effort we put into Pluto/Charon he/she should be aware of it now.

That and only that was the content of my post.

In general, however, --and that includes you-- a more considerate use of the word "SILLY" is always a good idea!
(remember? I do not like to be called "silly" in public by 14 year old boys...).

Bye Fridger

How about from 40-year-old men?

Seriously, I do understand the complaint, considering that while that which comes with Celestia is the most accurate rendering of Pluto/charon, it is not the most realistic, and does look a bit silly for an otherwise rocky/icy planetary system.

d.m.f.

That's ok, I misinterpreted how you wrote the post.

eg. When you put YOU in capital letters, to me it sounded a bit aggressive, but it seems to me now, you meant that if Unfound didn't like the default Pluto/Charon textures, there are still a lot of other people who do like them and think that they are nice and factual.

Am I understanding you correctly now?

Fridger wrote:In general, however, --and that includes you-- a more considerate use of the word "SILLY" is always a good idea!
(remember? I do not like to be called "silly" in public by 14 year old boys...).

Sorry about that, I was actually only 13 back then.

This was another misinterpretation. I didn't mean to offend you when I said this, I meant it in a 'joking' way (and I thought that you had left the forums, which is still a bad excuse), and I didn't know as much about netiquette back then.

I wouldn't do something like that again, as I've learnt by my mistake.

d.m.f wrote:How about from 40-year-old men?

When he said 14 year old boys, he was talking about me, you weren't here when I called him silly so you wouldn't have heard about it.

Getting back on topic, here's a more direct link to a more detailed speculative Pluto texture, using Ganymede textures, which I found on the Celestia Motherlode:

http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catal ... don_id=178

- Michael

d.m.falk wrote:How about from 40-year-old men?

Much worse . It would just reflect that man's background ...

Seriously, I do understand the complaint, considering that while that which comes with Celestia is the most accurate rendering of Pluto/charon, it is not the most realistic, and does look a bit silly for an otherwise rocky/icy planetary system.

d.m.f.

I guess Celestia's design principles are up to its developers.
And we have decided to put the facts first.

If you can tell me a more /realistic/ texture for Pluto, all of us would be MOST curious. The present textures implement the scientifically most advanced knowledge of mankind about Pluto's surface. I would be very glad if we had better information!

Please take also into account that I blurred the texture's resolution on purpose to make the present albedo information perfectly compatible with a rocky/icy surface. It was a big surprise to many experts that the color of Plutos low albedo features was actually brown/orange rather than some kind of "icy-blue", for example.


Bye Fridger

Michael Kilderry wrote:

Fridger wrote:In general, however, --and that includes you-- a more considerate use of the word "SILLY" is always a good idea!
(remember? I do not like to be called "silly" in public by 14 year old boys...).

Sorry about that, I was actually only 13 back then.

This was another misinterpretation. I didn't mean to offend you when I said this, I meant it in a 'joking' way (and I thought that you had left the forums, which is still a bad excuse), and I didn't know as much about netiquette back then.

I wouldn't do something like that again, as I've learnt by my mistake.

...

- Michael

OK Michael,

let's now definitely forget that incident! Thanks for your straight explanations.

Bye Fridger

If I can help out here...

It's not use of English that's the problem: there are actually two different problems: the emphasis of words, and a 'trap' in the English language.

First, UPPER CASE. The Netiquette has particular recommendations about it. This problem is that some people read postings addressed to them imagine an avatar of voice (one might say), and capitalising 'you' could cause the reader to imagine that one is singling out someone for rebuke, they might even imagine being prodded in the chest, even though the poster had no such intention. Use of UPPER CASE is often unnecessary - try without.

Second, the English language 'trap' (number 2,386, I think ). The English word 'silly' is another whose meaning has been distorted through the centuries by careless use, and I think it is actually authoritative adults and teachers (believe it or not) who did this. Orginally, 'silly' meant 'blessed', as in 'blessed by God'. Then it changed to referring to a silly child, as in the child behaves in an endearingly na??ve way. By Victorian times, the word was being used to reprimand children: "you have been a very naughty, very silly child!" Now many native English speakers are ignorant of this change, and accept that silly means stupid, but some know 'silly' is much less an insult than 'stupid'. So, it's another English language 'trap'. It does not and should not mean stupid, thought it can imply 'childish'. So, be careful with this word when applying it to people!

I of course hypocritically breach Netiquette by going off-topic here, but that is my generous sacrifice* to the Celestia forum hoping to make things run more smoothly in future.

Many people in the world don't know which planets (planetoids!) have been imaged close up by spacecraft encounters, so don't know Pluto and Charon are poorly known. The default textures are the 'correct' one to use of course, but actually that provides an opportunity to educate people why such 'poor' textures are the correct ones to use, which t00fri partly did, and Michael Kilderry extended. The mentioning of no spacecraft encounters yet, and pointing to the alternative speculative textures rounds this exercise off nicely.

Spiff.

* Do I hear selden's footsteps now, or am I just wracked with guilt?

Michael Kilderry wrote:Getting back on topic, here's a more direct link to a more detailed speculative Pluto texture, using Ganymede textures, which I found on the Celestia Motherlode:
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catal ... don_id=17- Michael

I had compiled the debate about Pluto/Charon visualisation in this page: http://jeam.tag.free.fr/CELESTIAhtml/CelestiaAddons-SystemeSolaire-Pluton1.htm Updated texture with recent real picts by Fridger (now in the current Celestia's last releases) and some of the interpreted ones by others . It's an individual choice: real knowledge, or artistic license. Jeam

* Do I hear selden's footsteps now, or am I just wracked with guilt?

Guilt.

Definitely guilt.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:If I can help out here... It's not use of English that's the problem: there are actually two different problems: the emphasis of words, and a 'trap' in the English language.
Spiff.

I absolutely agree with you, and add a little cent:
if you write something that could be misunderstood, either because you are not fluent in English or because the subject is a bit " thorny" (I searched this word in dictionary, to be sure to write the right thing), use emoticons to make clear the sense you are giving to your words:
will be undoubtely understood as a friendly wording,
as an absolutely contrary speaking, and so on.
I think that if many of the writers in this post would have used this little trick, the topic would have been ended a lot of messages ago.
Bye

Andrea

Hi ANDREA,

thanks for the 'vote of confidence'! I generally avoid littering my posts with smileys etc, it sometimes gives a non-serious appearance to what one writes, but sometimes they are vital to avoiding misunderstanding.

The inability of people to always interpret postings (that is, elsewhere from the Celestia forum) as intended has caused the proposal of 'humour-tagging' (which is what the smilies do), but that in itself can go too far: see this The Register commentary Are you trying to be funny? If so check [ ] this box ( http://www.theregister.com/2005/07/13/t ... irony_tag/ ) on the 'dangers' of having to clarify every possible intention. It's a mad world! ;)8):P.

Spiff.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:Hi ANDREA,.... It's a mad world! ;)8):P. Spiff.

Yes, I absolutely agree, and this is the reason why I added my little cent. Most of times it's very easy and not time-consuming to make our intentions clear and undoubtable, don't you agree?
Bye

Andrea

t00fri wrote:

d.m.falk wrote:How about from 40-year-old men?

Much worse . It would just reflect that man's background ...

Or the direction at which said 40-year-old man intends. (So says that particular 40-year-old man-- Well, 40 as of this 10th October..)

If you can tell me a more /realistic/ texture for Pluto, all of us would be MOST curious. The present textures implement the scientifically most advanced knowledge of menkind about Pluto's surface. I would be very glad if we had better information!

Please take also into account that I blurred the texture's resolution on purpose to make the present albedo information perfectly compatible with a rocky/icy surface. It was a big surprise to many experts that the color of Plutos low albedo features was actually brown/orange rather than some kind of "icy-blue", for example.

I'm not surprised by that, actually- This is consistant with mixed-rocky/icy surfaces, especially with high-contrasting albedos.

As for texture, I think a reasonable educated guess can be inferred, in which the high-albedo regions are icy and smooth (ruddiness due to it being methane ice, rather than water-ice), while dark regions are rough rocky regions. (Certain moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune are good working examples to build upon.

(Speculative textures I've seen for both Pluto/Chasron and Sedna are perhaps too much like Mercury- Current knowledge suggests Sedna is relatively smooth but not icy, and Pluto, at least, is mixed. Not sure about Charon, but with its lower albedo, I'd say it has less surface ice than Pluto has, but stiull similarly mixed.)

d.m.f.

d.m.falk wrote:
...
As for texture, I think a reasonable educated guess can be inferred, in which the high-albedo regions are icy and smooth (ruddiness due to it being methane ice, rather than water-ice), while dark regions are rough rocky regions. (Certain moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune are good working examples to build upon.

(Speculative textures I've seen for both Pluto/Chasron and Sedna are perhaps too much like Mercury- Current knowledge suggests Sedna is relatively smooth but not icy, and Pluto, at least, is mixed. Not sure about Charon, but with its lower albedo, I'd say it has less surface ice than Pluto has, but stiull similarly mixed.)

d.m.f.

Guesses are not interesting in the context of improving the /official/ Celestia texture. Here we need facts. Since noone has come close to Pluto yet, noone KNOWS anything better more accurate or more REALISTIC than what is depicted in the present Celestia texture.

After spending a quite large amount of research in that issue, I suppose I am aware of most existing "speculative" textures as well. In fact there is even such a texture made by myslf which quite a few people liked very much

Bye Fridger

....Jesus....H.........Christ.....

I'll be sure to shut up from now on. Just point me to some alternate textures (I already know about the Ganymead(sp?) ones, but didn't like them aesthetically(sp?)) and I'll be sure to stay FAR in the background of the forum, from now on.

Seriously, I didn't have the intention of sparking some hellacious arguement or semantical debate by just asking a simple question.


My apologies.

Ah, don't apologise, you just encountered a widespread phenomenon of discussion groups on the internet.

Have you tried here: Steve Albers' Planetary Maps (Global Images) ( http://laps.fsl.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html ). This guy's pretty good at using photographic imagery. He points to Bjorn Jonsson's fine stuff as well.

Spiff.

I don't get it. Thier is no alternate textures for Pluto or Charon on either of theese pages.

Try and create them yourself. Seriously, it's a fun endeavour and you should be able to get something more pleasing to your taste.