M20, the Trifid Nebula

praesepe · Post #1by **praesepe** » 12.06.2003, 22:47

Hi,

After a little pause, this is my new add-on project: the trifid nebula or M20. These are early screenshots, since there's a lot of work to do on the main texture (a 2048x2048 tiff file in which I had to remove LOTS of stars, sigh). I've got the RA and DEC values but having trouble with the dsitances. The different sources suggest distances from 2200 to 9000 ly

P.S.: As usual, all stars there are rendered by Celestia.

Darkmiss · Post #2by **Darkmiss** » 13.06.2003, 01:10

Very nice work
looks good enough to go.

Also i have noticed in a lot of peoples screen shots, that they do not use the "stars as pionts" selection in the Celestia options
Why is this?

which one would be the correct view (for realism) on or off?
Or is stars as points (off) just for slower machines ?

Post #3by **selden** » 13.06.2003, 02:22

Paul,

CRTs and LCDs don't have the dynamic range in brightness to be able to show astronomical objects at realistic intensities. At least with the normal stars setting (not as points) there's some variation in their apparent brightness, although nowhere near as much as there would be with an ideal display device.

I've found "stars as points" to be useful when trying to align things, but in general I think that setting is most useful in improving performance when the variations in brightness don't matter.

For what it's worth, I think it'd be nice if Celestia supported a much wider range of intensities for stars, even though it would have to do it by giving them much larger diameters.

Partiview does it, why can't Celestia???

Note I said it'd be nice, not that it's important so far as I'm concerned. Others may feel differently, of course.

billybob884 · Post #4by **billybob884** » 17.06.2003, 21:47

increbible! keep up the good work praesepe!

billybob884 · Post #5by **billybob884** » 24.06.2003, 01:36

its been a while, hows it coming?

praesepe · Post #6by **praesepe** » 30.06.2003, 15:46

I know... but because of an HD failure I've lost part of my work, so I'll have to start again

At least I've got a copy of the original tiff image (2048x2048) halfways worked so I won't have to restart from 0 :wink:

Now I am going out for holydays for about 15 days or so, so I'm gonna leave the forums those days... but I will return, I promise! hehe