Celestia Forums

Look here :

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061201.html

That picture is amazing ! And apparently, there are two very straight jets produced by the galactic core. Are they really jets ??

Here's the large picture. I just find this really amazing !

And here's the exact same galaxy, as seen in Celestia ! Geez, it looks almost the same ! I may try to add the jets...

Yeah, that's theoretical physics

Try NGC 1300, also a very nice SBc type. I did not check whether the arm orientation is right. But in that respect we can't do much anyway, except making a custom template.

Bye Fridger

Yep, we now must remenber that ALL galaxies are customizable. It would be nice to see some fresh templates from time to time! Anyone want to try?

With some contrast and a grayscale efect some pictures of galaxies can be turned into galaxy templates
ex: M 33

But with a loss of quality even on 512X512 resolution

SkyScraper wrote:With some contrast and a grayscale efect some
pictures of galaxies can be turned into galaxy templates
ex: M 33

But with a loss of quality even on 512X512 resolution

Let me just warn you. It's by far not so easy. I can tell since I coded
the stuff. ElChristou and I have collaborated quite some time to gain practical
experience with template design. You do that best by using different
layers. Also 128x128 is usually sufficient.

You should NOT forget that the templates are NOT directly displayed in
Celestia. The bright points in the template are "triggering" a related
distribution of sprites (luminous bubbles) with different sizes
along with randomized code that generates the galaxy thickness. This
procedure is quite sophisticated, meanwhile.

Also you must first rotate/reproject the galaxy image into frontview
with image manipulation tools (PS, GIMP,..) Moreover the brightness
must be correctly normalized...


Altogether, the final galaxy display in Celestia looks usually VERY
different from the template

Bye Fridger

I don't know much about galaxy templates
But is it posible to show color from the png image?

SkyScraper wrote:I don't know much about galaxy templates
But is it posible to show color from the png image?

Yes and no. As you know the galaxies are already colored, but the color
profile is not taken from the pixels in the .png templates. One day I may
well do this. More important is perhaps that .png format can also
administrate an alpha channel besides R, G, B that can be exploited for
various effects related to transparency/opacity .

Bye Fridger