Celestia Forums

I am using Celestia 1.4.1 version on a normal graphic card and WindowsXP.

Can someone help me out, and explain why the Comet Tails DO NOT show up on this Celestia version. I still have the 1.3.1 version in PC and that works
fine. I have tried everything from the Options to the keyboard possibilties, but nothing works. So, I figure, this has to be a unknown BUG
or something.

Thank you in advance.......

Planetman wrote:I am using Celestia 1.4.1 version on a normal graphic card and WindowsXP.

Can someone help me out, and explain why the Comet Tails DO NOT show up on this Celestia version. I still have the 1.3.1 version in PC and that works
fine. I have tried everything from the Options to the keyboard possibilties, but nothing works. So, I figure, this has to be a unknown BUG
or something.

Thank you in advance.......

Comet tails don't form for distances of the comet beyond 5-7 AU = 5-7 *(Sol - Earth)_distance. In 1.4.1 this has now been incorporated. Just select the date e.g. of comet Halley, when it was close to the Earth/Sun. You will see the tail again. When the comet's distance increases beyond 5-7 AU. it's tail fades away in Celestia 1.4.1 AND in Nature!


Bye Fridger

Celestia v1.4.1 now draws comet tails correctly. Earlier versions of Celestia did not.

Comets out beyond the orbit of Jupiter do not have tails. They are too cold. Right now, only one major comet is close enough to the sun to have a tail. It's not included with Celestia, though, because it was discovered too recently.

To see a comet with a tail, you need to set Celestia to a date when that comet was close to the sun. For example, if you set the date to February, 1986, Halley will have a tail.

And if you want to get a really accurate xyz trajectory for Halley, visit the Web page
http://www.chris.obyrne.com/celestia/

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a "normal graphics card". Instead, there are at several dozen different types of cards and chips made by at least a half-dozen different companies. They all are different, and some work better than others.

Exactly what do you have?

What does Celestia say in the first 5 lines of its menu Help / "OpenGL Info"?

Hi there,

Many thanks to you both, yes that was good advice you gave; even though I did do the same, but..I guess I may have had the year wrong, or something. The comet tails look great! Love it. Much finer than the previous versions. All comet tails are visual now. That is a very good feature the comet tails only seen from its true altitude..seen from Earth. Looks realistic enough.
Celestia is THE BEST Astronomy Simulator there for me! I have not yet seen
any other that beats it! And for FREE...


Thanks again....