CelestialMatters News

[t00fri]

Enjoy the thread started by Andrew (aka ajtribick) about

Topography of Saturn's icy moons

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=391

It's about Dr. Paul Schenk's first topographic data of these moons obtained with Cassini's stereo camera! I took quite some effort to generate a 4k normalmap for Iapetus from these pioneering data that is for download at CM.

Fridger

[t00fri]

New (Nov 30, 2010) Tethys map & 16k VT set for Download
http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=392

About two weeks ago (Nov 30, 2010) a much improved hires map of the icy Saturn moon Tethys was released by the NASA/Cassini mission.

In view of the high imaging standard, I felt it was worthwhile to create a corresponding 16k VT-archive for Celestia (.Sci). Of course, I used my F-TexTools to guarantee highest possible quality. Have a look at some impressive screenshots and download the VT's! You will also find a discussion about Tethys' colors in my thread.

Enjoy,
Fridger

[MiR]

Thanks, "not-making-addons"-Fridger for these great add-ons!

Good job as always.

Michael

[t00fri]

Tue, March 15, CM offline due to Ibiblio Infrastructure Migration!

Meanwhile CelestialMatters cannot be reached anymore for the next 12-24 hours, depending on the progress the staff is making with the massive migration of the IBIBLIO Infrastructure.

I placed a corresponding message in CM yesterday, but some users may not have seen it.

Here is the original info by John Reuning @ibiblio.org

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Short version:

What: http://www.ibiblio.org and all hosted domains will be offline during an
infrastructure migration
When: Tuesday, March 15, 9:00 am EST until whenever we finish (est. is
12-24 hours)

Long version:

We're still on track to migrate tomorrow. I'll spare everyone the
really long version. For the full set of details, please see the
previous posts to the ibiblio-announce list. Below is the list of
hosts and services affected by the downtime.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fridger

[t00fri]

Here is a status report about the migration of the ibiblio infrastructure including domain hosts.

1) The transfer has been essentially completed, BUT
2) Ibiblio has changed the IP addresses!

We have to update the DNS entries with our domain host.
That will take a few hours to progagate through the net. Should be OK sometime tonight, at most by tomorrow morning.

I'll leave a note here as soon as CelestialMatters is accessible again as usual.

Fridger

[Fenerit]

...And I will declare "solved" this topic: http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16383 since now I can send messages but the "Connetting to http://www.celestialmatters.org... on the Firefox's statusbar remains.

[t00fri]

Hi all,

after the update of the DNS entry of our CM domain host has been completed, CelestialMatters is again accessible as usual. However there are now various warnings about a problem of allocating memory in the CM Web page etc. which I am investigating. This does not disturb the CM forum.

Fridger

[t00fri]

Online Radioactivity Measurements in Japan

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=401

I have opened a thread that will serve to provide concise measurement data for all Japanese provinces (cities) including the Fukushima region.

The links to the official data are on a per day/hour-by-hour basis, but the accompanying info is in Japanese.

Hence it would be great if Reiko could help to translate some of the crucial explanations!!!

Reiko?

If there is interest I volunteer to Perl-extract the data and to produce intuitive image displays thereoff!

Fridger

[Reiko]

Where exactly you need translations?

[t00fri]

Where exactly you need translations?

Hi Reiko,

could we move any further specific discussions about that to my radiation@Japan thread in CM?

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewt ... 01&start=6

The reason is that in this CM News thread, I would like to mainly list new topics in CM that may be interesting also to people here.

Thanks,
Fridger

[t00fri]

In-depth documentation of Celestia 1.6.1 source code

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=417

I make an extensive, clickable Doxygen documentation of the latest official Celestia 1.6.1 source code available and discuss related matters. This may be of particular interest for people planning to implement their own custom code/features or simply to understand more of Celestia's code structure.

Fridger

[t00fri]

Gas cloud approaching super-massive Black Hole (Sgr A*)

Exciting News:
http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewt ... =8309#8309

Fridger

[t00fri]

Hi all,

the shatters.net user )??(??(J?E)??)??( appears to encounter blocking upon trying to read my recent CM thread about the Higgs boson searches at LHC. You can help me a lot to track this problem down, if you let me know in case you encounter(ed) a similar problem.

The link in question is

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=419

EDIT:
Actually, I just learned that )??(??(J?E)??)??( is recently even unable to view the CM forum homepage!
Anybody else???

Thanks,
Fridger

[Fenerit]

From my part, no blocks neither few days ago nor today.

[DOJOMO]

Fridger,
I've had no problems at all. I visit Celesyia Matters every day.
Regards,

[t00fri]

Imagine the Solar System was part of a Globular Cluster

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewt ... =8318#8318

I discuss a cute "Gedanken experiment" and visualize it with my sophisticated, entirely new simulation of globular clusters for Celestia.Sci.

I display some typical views that we would have from space just behind Earth, from the surface of Earth in twilight and from the Moon, say (no atmosphere). Of course, one could as well have placed some ficticious "solar system" with planets into any given globular cluster...

Enjoy,
Fridger

[t00fri]

Nick Risinger's MilkyWay for Celestia(.Sci) (Download)

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=423

I summarize my work, discuss in detail the considerable advantages of Nick Risingers panoramic MilkyWay photo (http://skysurvey.org/) and offer a corresponding add-on for download that provides a high-quality realistic rendering background for Celestia(.Sci).
(Creative Commons License)

Enjoy,
Fridger

[t00fri]

Working on the new Chinese Chang'e 2 Moon Texture

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=424

This thread contains a detailed description of my approach of extracting and adapting the new high-quality moon texture for Celestia(.Sci). It will contain regular status reports and a discussion of possibly appearing problems.

When I am ready and content with the result, I'll offer it for download at CelestialMatters.

Fridger

[t00fri]

Still waiting for the perfect surface map of the Moon

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=426

In this thread, I present a thorough comparison of the two recent surface maps of our Moon: The brand new Chinese Chang'e 2 map and the recent map (Nov 2011) made of images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) by means of its Wide Angle Camera (WAC).

The title of this thread anticipates my conclusions...

Fridger

[t00fri]

My favorite Moon texture: Chang'e 2 remapped, colored, ..16k

http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?t=428

Now I have completed a very pleasing colored 16k Moon surface texture that fits perfectly to the LRO-LOLA normalmap. I have described to some detail the main steps (GIMP) that lead to the finalized result. If you also like the texture, let me know. I'll then wrap it up for download...

Fridger