Improving the Celestia Wikibook

[LukeCEL]

Would it be useful if the Wikibook included detailed pages on how to create specific types of objects (e.g. asteroids, exoplanets, galaxies, etc.)? Since the current pages have good information on each of the parameters, but for people wanting to create a specific IRL object, it's hard to put all the information together. Plus, there's a lot of related astronomical knowledge that's relevant, such as how to calculate or estimate missing parameters.

[selden]

That certainly seems reasonable to me.

Currently that information is scattered all over the Web (some, for example, among my "resources" pages). I'm sure it'd be much more helpful if it were all in one place.

[Lafuente_Astronomy]

Perhaps a few Celestial calculators could be placed. How about putting Grant's Spreadsheet on the internet, and make it a calculator, in which any input you make in one field will be given their expected values in all other fields as per the Formula? Any other calculators are welcome as well, especially one that enables you to change equatorial RA and Dec into Celestia's RA and Dec for galaxies and other deep sky objects

[LukeCEL]

That certainly seems reasonable to me.

Okay, I'm planning on doing a page on asteroids first. Asteroids are a good topic for beginners, I think, at least I started with those.

Perhaps a few Celestial calculators could be placed. How about putting Grant's Spreadsheet on the internet, and make it a calculator, in which any input you make in one field will be given their expected values in all other fields as per the Formula? Any other calculators are welcome as well, especially one that enables you to change equatorial RA and Dec into Celestia's RA and Dec for galaxies and other deep sky objects

That's not really feasible in Wikibooks, but at the very least we can provide links to tools like Grant's spreadsheet.

[SevenSpheres]

The other day, Selden suggested on the Discord that in addition to the Wikibook, the Celestia User's Guide should also be updated for 1.7.0. This I completely agree with. As a start (sort of) I've converted the existing User's Guide from a Word document to a PDF (which is very easy to do - just open it and save it as a PDF) so it can be read online. I've already added a link to it in the Wikibook, but I might as well post it here too for visibility.

[LukeCEL]

Here is a link to prepare CMOD models for asteroids. The instructions have only been tested once (by SevenSpheres). I'd like some more testing to make sure they work for everyone. Can everybody please try them out?

Thanks.

[gironde]

I have updated :
https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Celestia/SSC_File

in section 'Related Topics' at the end of the page, I have added the links to SSC update, STC, DSC, CEL, CELX and other (all in wikipedia)

I noticed that someone had already put information on news concerning Celestia 1.7.0

[SevenSpheres]

I have updated :
https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Celestia/SSC_File

in section 'Related Topics' at the end of the page, I have added the links to SSC update, STC, DSC, CEL, CELX and other (all in wikipedia)

I noticed that someone had already put information on news concerning Celestia 1.7.0

Thanks gironde. I merged your post into the already existing thread about the Wikibook.

[gironde]

Contrary to what is said in the Celestia SSC wikibook, the function
FixedPosition {Planetographic [Long Lat Alt]}
which is intended to replace LongLat [Long Lat Alt]
does not work while LongLat works very well.
With FixedPosition all rentals are in the same place.
Having transformed all my rental files, I had to go back.

LongLat [ Long Lat Alt ]
Obsolete Deprecated in Celestia v1.5.0 and later

Previously used to define a place's position, in the object's reference frame. Long is the East longitude (in degrees), Lat its latitude, and Alt the altitude (in kilometres). Longitude is measured toward the East. West longitude can be specified as a negative value.

Warning: LongLat does not place objects correctly when used with OrbitFrame, SurfaceObject, or Object "Surfacefeature" in Celestia v1.5.0 and later. Use FixedPosition [ x y z ] or FixedPosition { Planetographic [ Long Lat Alt ] } instead.

But maybe I missed something in the explanations.