Celestia Forums

where can i find nebula's? can't find 'em. Are nebula's next to a star or next to another galaxy?

Thx anyway

infrablue wrote:where can i find nebula's? can't find 'em. Are nebula's next to a star or next to another galaxy?

Thx anyway

What are you actually looking for? Nebulae or galaxies? Celestia 1.4.1 has 10600+ galaxies incorporated, i.e. the whole revised NGC/IC catalog in latest edition.

If you don't see them, you got to adjust your settings!

Bye Fridger

Celestia does not come with any images of nebulas. You have to download and install Addons that contain images of the ones you want.

Some are available on the Celestia Motherlode.
Visit http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/

Too bad

infrablue wrote:Too bad

Uh... What is bad about this? The ML alone offers a *lot* of downloadables. And if you can??t find your particular favourite nebula there, it is fairly easy to make your own installation from any picture you may have of it. This surely can??t be bad...

- rthorvald

rthorvald wrote:

infrablue wrote:Too bad

Uh... What is bad about this? The ML alone offers a *lot* of downloadables. And if you can??t find your particular favourite nebula there, it is fairly easy to make your own installation from any picture you may have of it. This surely can??t be bad...

- rthorvald

I think the "Too bad" part is because it would be nice if Celestia have atleast one or two nebulas to show. It would be nice to see one without addon.

Bye, Anders

tech2000 wrote:

rthorvald wrote:

infrablue wrote:Too bad

Uh... What is bad about this? The ML alone offers a *lot* of downloadables. And if you can??t find your particular favourite nebula there, it is fairly easy to make your own installation from any picture you may have of it. This surely can??t be bad...

- rthorvald

I think the "Too bad" part is because it would be nice if Celestia have atleast one or two nebulas to show. It would be nice to see one without addon.

Bye, Anders

After we have integrated 10000+ galaxies, the next steps in preparation are the /mass/ rendering of about the same number of galactic clusters and thereafter we shall tackle nebulae. It is conceptual nonsense to just fill the Celestia universe with a /couple/ of nebulae. The real challenge is to automatically render the essential features of all standard deep space objects in form of FULL scientific catalogs. Nebulae are particularly challenging due to their /irregular/ shapes. Galaxies may be classified (and rendered) according to standardized Hubble classes that can be extracted from the galaxy catalogs.

With ElChristou I am presently at this level of detail as to automatic galaxy rendering via new PNG templates with info /only/ taken from published catalogs:



Galactic clusters are relatively easy to incorporate. With nebulae we are still in a "research and development" phase.

Bye Fridger

Got to hand it to you, fridger, the screenshots are awesome. Can't wait to see this live in Celestia.

tech2000 wrote:Got to hand it to you, fridger, the screenshots are awesome. Can't wait to see this live in Celestia.

Indeed... They do look great! And that you are considering nebulas too... But how can you deal with the vast variation? Some type of mathematical rendering instead of graphics templates? I.e. like modelling Celestia??s atmosphere function? Or a larger template library?

- rthorvald

rthorvald wrote:

tech2000 wrote:Got to hand it to you, fridger, the screenshots are awesome. Can't wait to see this live in Celestia.

Indeed... They do look great! And that you are considering nebulas too... But how can you deal with the vast variation? Some type of mathematical rendering instead of graphics templates? I.e. like modelling Celestia??s atmosphere function? Or a larger template library?

- rthorvald

Runar,

I think I described the situation quite concisely above: galactic clusters (being mostly circular) are straightforward, while genuine gas nebulae are still in the "research and development (R&D)" stage...meaning that the answer to your question is not yet obvious . But there are options that look promising. Possibly, however, the automatic rendering will be far less "accurate", i.e. more "generic" than in case e.g. of galaxies. But this does not have to be too bad. Look e.g. at the cases of the /irregular/ SMC or LMC galaxies. They look very nice in Celestia 1.4.1. although the detailed shapes do not match a photograph well. Yet, every (amateur) astronomer would immediately recognize these Celestia objects as SMC and LMC...Since our task is to implement only those features that are to be found in standard catalogs, the similarity deduced from that information can never be "photo-like".

Bye Fridger

t00fri wrote:while genuine gas nebulae are still in the "research and development (R&D)" stage...meaning that the answer to your question is not yet obvious

I understand that, i was just curious... The approach to this will neccecarily influence our graphic artists "work environment", so to speak...

t00fri wrote:Since our task is to implement only those features that are to be found in standard catalogs, the similarity deduced from that information can never be "photo-like".

Whether it will be photo-like or not, it is just as exiting to look forward to... Just as with the galaxies, which makes Celestia a whole new place to visit. I also look forward to learning more about those templates...

- rthorvald

Most excellent work on the galaxies gentlemen.

i think ited be nice to add other kinds of planets other than the solar system and gassies we need like stars in galaxies. that should in the step after the next step