Project "Celestia Origin", release dated December 30, 2017

[Carl]

First thoughts after download and install of Celestia Origin. I wish to thank Art Blos and Janus for their help. uTorrent worked to download, but I uninstalled it. I was playing Borderlands last night, and it suddenly had a random bug of going to a black screen. I uninstalled uTorrent, and that fixed the issue. I have switched to Shareazza client, and it seems to be doing well.

Celestia Origin is truly a great piece of work. Your group did an outstanding job. I really liked the inclusion of the Topography surfaces for the Earth, Moon, Mars, etc. The Dying Earth addon was a pleasant surprise. Although I expected to see steaming seas on the moons of Jupiter, and I believe that by the time frame of the expanding sun, Earth will have lost it's Moon. I am NOT complaining. I think it is a great addon on.

This Celestia Origin project has saved me days and days of work to rebuild my CelestiaAstroPure version. Plus some of what is in Origin, I do not believe I have in my files. I can now begin adding the various spacecrafts and whatever else I decide I need.

Note, if you need a missing addon: I have saved every addon I have used since 2000, and also have the Celestia programs going back to 1.2.1. For example: I have the shroxclassic, which includes the Gemini 3ds model. I don't see it on the Motherlode anymore. If someone needs an addon to work with or replace, and you can't find it on Motherlode, send me a private message. I will move to my Google drive and make it available. If you do, please be detailed as to the addon you seek. Sometimes there was more than one addon, made by different persons. I believe Rosetta is an example of that.
Carl

[Art Blos]

Carl < Thanks for the positive feedback!
If you have any unique add-ons and you are ready to share them, be sure to write.

[CM1215]

Celestia Origin is an excellent addon collection! I have already integrated its asteroid and comet catalogues into my Celestia installation.

I have not seen your star catalogue yet, but does it include the star Kepler-70 and its two exoplanets? If not, I have an addon for the system that I'm willing to share. Also, what about the millisecond pulsar PSR J1719-1438 and its exoplanet, known as the "diamond planet"? Does it include that? I have an addon for that system as well. It was discussed here: ./viewtopic.php?f=23&t=17782

[Art Blos]

CM1215 < We do not have the listed objects yet. All the exoplanets we plan to add on our own.

[LukeCEL]

All the exoplanets we plan to add on our own.

That's great! The current exoplanet catalogue for Celestia is...way out of date, to say the least.

[Art Blos]

That's great! The current exoplanet catalogue for Celestia is...way out of date, to say the least.

It is important to understand that a full exoplanetary base will be ready at best in a few months. To import data from the Internet, we need to solve many scientific and technical problems. However, we have already started to solve them.

If by April we will not make it on time to do it, in any case, the replenishment will be.

[LukeCEL]

Oh yeah, good luck!

It is important to understand that a full exoplanetary base will be ready at best in a few months. To import data from the Internet, we need to solve many scientific and technical problems. However, we have already started to solve them.

If by April we will not make it on time to do it, in any case, the replenishment will be.

True. I actually tried making an exoplanet catalogue using data from NASA's Exoplanet Archive. I spent months and months fiddling around with my .stc file until I realized that I hadn't converted the orbital frame to the correct one (you're supposed to use calculations like these otherwise the orbits won't be wrong in Celestia).

Question: how are you going to going to texture the planets? Celestia 1.6.1 used Sudarky's gas giant classification but that was before high-temperature exoplanets like KELT-9b were discovered.

[Art Blos]

you're supposed to use calculations like these otherwise the orbits won't be wrong in Celestia

We know about this.

how are you going to going to texture the planets?

We are developing our own classification table according to the latest scientific data. On its basis, then we will select the appropriate textures.

[Cham]

I've downloaded Celestia Origin from one of the links given on the first page. The zip files appears to be non-standard in some way, and I had to use some special utility on my Mac to unzip the pack . I successfully uncompressed the file and extracted a few parts to play with.

I noticed that the TRAPPIST-1 system isn't properly aligned with the Sun. As far as I know, this is a transit system, so here's what I got, using my own version of the TRAPPIST-1 orbits (found somewhere on the forum), superposed with the version from Celestia Origin.

I believe that the version from Celestia Origin is wrong.

In case someone cares about this, here's my own code for that system :

Code: Select all

"b" "TRAPPIST-1"
{
   Radius<rE> 1.09
   Mass 0.85 #

   Texture "exo-class3.*"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      SemiMajorAxis<AU> 0.01111
      Period<d> 1.51087
      Eccentricity 0

      Epoch 2457322.517360 # transit midpoint
      MeanAnomaly<deg> 90.000

      ArgOfPericenter<deg> 180.000 # unknown, 0 assumed
      Inclination<deg> 0.984
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # unknown, using ecliptic
   }

   UniformRotation {
      Inclination<deg> 0.984 # to match orbit
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # to match orbit
   }
}

"c" "TRAPPIST-1"
{
   Radius<rE> 1.06
   Mass 1.38 #

   Texture "asteroid.*"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      SemiMajorAxis<AU> 0.01521
      Period<d> 2.42182
      Eccentricity 0

      Epoch 2457282.807280 # transit midpoint
      MeanAnomaly<deg> 90.000

      ArgOfPericenter<deg> 180.000 # unknown, 0 assumed
      Inclination<deg> 0.964
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # unknown, using ecliptic
   }

   UniformRotation {
      Inclination<deg> 0.964 # to match orbit
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # to match orbit
   }
}

"d" "TRAPPIST-1"
{
   Radius<rE> 0.77
   Mass 0.41 #

   Texture "asteroid.*"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      SemiMajorAxis<AU> 0.02144
      Period<d> 4.04961
      Eccentricity 0

      Epoch 2457670.141650 # transit midpoint
      MeanAnomaly<deg> 90.000

      ArgOfPericenter<deg> 180.000 # unknown, 0 assumed
      Inclination<deg> 0.884
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # unknown, using ecliptic
   }

   UniformRotation {
      Inclination<deg> 0.884 # to match orbit
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # to match orbit
   }
}

"e" "TRAPPIST-1"
{
   Radius<rE> 0.92
   Mass 0.62 #

   Texture "asteroid.*"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      SemiMajorAxis<AU> 0.02817
      Period<d> 6.09962
      Eccentricity 0

      Epoch 2457660.378590 # transit midpoint
      MeanAnomaly<deg> 90.000

      ArgOfPericenter<deg> 180.000 # unknown, 0 assumed
      Inclination<deg> 0.774
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # unknown, using ecliptic
   }

   UniformRotation {
      Inclination<deg> 0.774 # to match orbit
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # to match orbit
   }
}

"f" "TRAPPIST-1"
{
   Radius<rE> 1.04
   Mass 0.68 #

   Texture "exo-class3.*"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      SemiMajorAxis<AU> 0.0371
      Period<d> 9.20669
      Eccentricity 0

      Epoch 2457671.397670 # transit midpoint
      MeanAnomaly<deg> 90.000

      ArgOfPericenter<deg> 180.000 # unknown, 0 assumed
      Inclination<deg> 0.954
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # unknown, using ecliptic
   }

   UniformRotation {
      Inclination<deg> 0.954 # to match orbit
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # to match orbit
   }
}

"g" "TRAPPIST-1"
{
   Radius<rE> 1.13
   Mass 1.34 #

   Texture "asteroid.*"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      SemiMajorAxis<AU> 0.0451
      Period<d> 12.3529
      Eccentricity 0

      Epoch 2457665.349370 # transit midpoint
      MeanAnomaly<deg> 90.000

      ArgOfPericenter<deg> 180.000 # unknown, 0 assumed
      Inclination<deg> 0.924
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # unknown, using ecliptic
   }

   UniformRotation {
      Inclination<deg> 0.924 # to match orbit
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # to match orbit
   }
}

"h" "TRAPPIST-1"
{
   Radius<rE> 0.76
   Mass 0.377359 # from mass-radius relationship

   Texture "asteroid.*"

   EllipticalOrbit {
      SemiMajorAxis<AU> 0.063
      Period<d> 20
      Eccentricity 0

      Epoch 2457662.554630 # transit midpoint
      MeanAnomaly<deg> 90.000

      ArgOfPericenter<deg> 180.000 # unknown, 0 assumed
      Inclination<deg> 0.834
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # unknown, using ecliptic
   }

   UniformRotation {
      Inclination<deg> 0.834 # to match orbit
      AscendingNode<deg> 255.734 # to match orbit
   }
}


[Art Blos]

I noticed that the TRAPPIST-1 system isn't properly aligned with the Sun. As far as I know, this is a transit system, so here's what I got, using my own version of the TRAPPIST-1 orbits (found somewhere on the forum), superposed with the version from Celestia Origin.

Thank you for your comment. Perhaps you are right. We left inclination as it was in the original addon, since we have not yet learned how to calculate it ourselves.

However, your code is for Celestia.sci, not Celestia 1.6.1.

[Cham]

However, your code is for Celestia.sci, not Celestia 1.6.1.

That code is working with Celestia 1.7.0. The units in the code should be included in the standard 1.7.0 version. I don't think it's related to the .sci version.

[Art Blos]

That code is working with Celestia 1.7.0. The units in the code should be included in the standard 1.7.0 version. I don't think it's related to the .sci version.

But "Celestia Origin" is intended only for version 1.6.1.

[selden]

We left inclination as it was in the original addon, since we have not yet learned how to calculate it ourselves.

Grant Hutchison wrote a spreadsheet which converts from plane-of-the-sky elements into Celestia's coordinates. It's available at https://www.classe.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/hutchison/spreadsheets.html#2

[Art Blos]

Grant Hutchison wrote a spreadsheet which converts from plane-of-the-sky elements into Celestia's coordinates. It's available at

I in this thread said that we know about this file. But there were too many other tasks and we did not study it in detail. Time will come, we will learn.

[Art Blos]

Increased the brightness of Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione and Rhea.

[Joey P.]

Please include this addon in the next version:

[Art Blos]

Changed the brightness, contrast and color of Saturn and its rings.

[Art Blos]

Changed the brightness of Jupiter.

[Joey P.]

I really like this project, however, a few of your updates to Celestia seem a bit «inappropriate» to me.

1. The Triton texture is «too green» and thus unrealistic. No pictures of Triton show a green surface. (the texture for J1407 b is excellent though, keep it.)
2. The fact that you linked some information links to Wikipedia is just stupid (no offense intended). Remember than Wikipedia is not a reliable source for information, and that me teachers will probably use Celestia Origin as well!

Sorry if anything I said was offensive.

[Art Blos]

1. The Triton texture is «too green» and thus unrealistic. No pictures of Triton show a green surface. (the texture for J1407 b is excellent though, keep it.)

Triton for the human eye will indeed appear greenish.
https://lightsinthedark.com/2014/08/24/new-global ... ptunes-moon-like-never-before/
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18668

2. The fact that you linked some information links to Wikipedia is just stupid (no offense intended). Remember than Wikipedia is not a reliable source for information, and that me teachers will probably use Celestia Origin as well!

Clearly that Wikipedia is not an authoritative source. However, articles on space objects in it are of very high quality (especially in the English version).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Good_articles