Dear members of the Celestia community!
We’d like to introduce our Celestia Origin project whose goal is to upgrade Celestia 1.6.3 & 1.7.0 with the most current information about celestial bodies without modifying the source code. This project is the largest one of its kind in the Russian Internet.
Our team is constantly monitoring space-related news and publications to collect the latest information about known space objects as well as scientific theories. As the result, we have created a unique assembly of Celestia add-ons. Most of the work has been done by the team members, while the rest was acquired from other parties. Each celestial body in our assembly has been updated with all available information, including physical and orbital parameters, alternative naming and topographic locations where available.
Project’s home page is located at https://vk.com/celestiaorigin
Project Members:
- Artyom Goncharov aka Art Blos — founder and head of the project, main developer and tester of the collection;
- Ivan Romanov aka Lepestronik — creator of the installation script for various OS, continues to develop the Lua Universal Tools GUI;
- Askaniy Anpilogov aka Askaniy — creator of textures, models and locations, document translator, main helper with ideas;
- Artyom Volgin aka Zemlyanin — creator of tools for automatic data collection (minor bodies) and creator of several unique add-ons, a consultant for various scientific issues, help in complex calculations;
- Anton Sobolev aka Vision — help with deep space objects.
Third party developers with the most significant contributions:
- Robert Skuridin aka RVS — former project member, creator of high quality virtual textures, further technical assistance;
- Greg Frieger — former project member, creator of the largest base of 3D models of the Solar system bodies, writing utilities for import to Celestia;
- Gennady Lygin aka Croc — creator of Lua Universal Tools GUI;
- Alexey Nesterov aka toutatis and DaveBowman2001 — creators of many high-quality spacecraft models and exclusive trajectories to them;
- Thomas Tarrants aka Sirius_Alpha — creator of the most accurate and up-to-date exoplanetary database;
- LukeCEL — creator of a large database of stars beyond the Milky Way;
- FarGetaNik and Snowfall-The-Cat — creators of a number of high-quality textures for planets and moons, as well as models for spacecraft;
- Linfeng Li aka Markerz — creating and testing of the installator for macOS systems.
The latest version (published on April 30th 2025) includes:
- 9 planets (including a hypothetical one);
- 299 planetary moons (with 4 hypothetical ones);
- 9 dwarf planets;
- 12 moons of dwarf planets;
- 4,624 asteroids + 28 binary and 1 trinary;
- 78 moons of asteroids;
- 1,490 comets;
- 1 moon of comets;
- >2,472,034 stars of the Milky Way;
- 112,842 stars outside the Milky Way;
- 5,692 exoplanets + 9,689 unconfirmed + 3 exomoons + 1 exoasteroid + 4 rogue planets;
- 10,955 galaxies;
- 403 globular clusters;
- 1,102 open clusters;
- 33 nebulae;
- 314 spacecrafts.
Use the attached torrent file
Celestia Origin v.17 (30.04.2025).torrent- (51.83 KiB) Downloaded 97 times
- Installation instructions
- CORE ARCHIVE
There is the basis of "Celestia Origin" collection, prepared for various operating systems (Windows, Linux and macOS).
The collection should be installed to any folder of the user's choice, regardless of whether the Celestia program is installed. In addition, the user can make an unlimited number of installations with different settings of the collection in different folders.
In the case of Windows and Linux, a portable version of the Celestia simulator will be installed along with the collection. In the case of macOS, the simulator must be installed by the user separately, and then the collection data must be connected in its settings (you should specify the data folder and the configuration file).
Installation:
1) completely extract the contents of the *.7z archive to a separate folder. ATTENTION: a file with *.wim extension can be recognized by the system as an archive, it should NOT be attempted to open or unpack;
2) run the installation script corresponding to the operating system you are using (in the case of Linux and macOS, you must first make it executable);
3) specify the full path to the folder where the collection must be installed;
4) select the compatibility mode with a particular version of the Celestia simulator, as well as the bit depth of the application in the case of Windows. Version 1.6.3 is recommended because it has better compatibility with the collection; compatibility mode with version 1.7.0 is experimental;
5) select the desired set of textures; The proposed options are suitable for very weak PCs and most laptops and include the installation of level 2 VT tiles and monolithic textures with a maximum resolution of 4096 x 2048 px, 2048 x 1024 px and 1024 x 512 px;
6) wait for the installation to finish. The name of the folder with the installed collection will be formed automatically based on the parameters selected during installation.
After the installation is complete, the folder with the installation files can be deleted, and the folder with the installed collection can be renamed at the user's choice.
Additional links
1) to run Celestia on Windows, you may need the following software libraries (32-bit and 64-bit)
https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x86.exe
https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe
2) Celestia distributions for macOS
* version 1.6.3
https://github.com/CelestiaProject/Celestia/relea ... 1.6.3/celestia-1.6.3-macOS.zip
* version based on 1.7.0
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1500434829
EXTRA TEXTURES ARCHIVE
There is high-quality textures for "Celestia Origin" collection with a maximum resolution from 8K to 64K.
Installation:
1) completely extract the contents of the *.7z archive to a separate folder. ATTENTION: a file with *.wim extension can be recognized by the system as an archive, it should NOT be attempted to open or unpack;
2) run the installation script corresponding to the operating system you are using (in the case of Linux and macOS, you must first make it executable);
3) specify the full path to the folder with the pre-installed collection, including the name of the folder itself;
4) select the desired set of textures;
The medres options are suitable for mid-level PCs and laptops and include the installation of monolithic textures with a maximum resolution of 4096 x 2048 px, as well as VT tiles of 3 and 4 levels.
The hires variants are suitable for modern PCs and laptops and include monolithic textures with a maximum resolution of 4096 x 2048 px, as well as VT tiles of 5 and 6 levels.
The options with the note "8k-models" make it possible to additionally install monolithic textures with a resolution of 8192 x 4096 px. ATTENTION: these textures increase the clarity of objects with models, but are not applicable for weak video cards;
5) wait for the installation to finish.
After the installation is complete, the folder with the installation files can be deleted, and the folder with the installed collection can be renamed at the user's choice.
EXTRA TRAJECTORIES ARCHIVE
There is extended trajectories of the inner natural satellites of the Solar System for "Celestia Origin" collection.
Installation:
1) unpack the "Installers (extra trajectories)" folder containing the installation files;
2) place the *.7z archive in the "Installers (extra trajectories)" folder;
3) run the installation script corresponding to the operating system you are using (in the case of Linux and macOS, you must first make it executable);
4) specify the full path to the folder with the pre-installed collection, including the name of the folder itself;
5) wait for the installation to finish.
After the installation is complete, the folder with the installation files can be deleted, and the folder with the installed collection can be renamed at the user's choice.
Pleasant flight!
