This refers to CVS celestia on September 22 2003.
This is not a bug, this is the solution I founc to a problem that was troubling me for a while.
When compiling and installing celestia from source on linux be aware that the shared files go in different places if you compile for GNOME/no desktop or KDE.
That is, if you compile --without-kde or --with-gtk then the shared files (including solarsys.ssc) will be found in:
/usr/local/share/celestia
If, on the other hand you compile with KDE support (the default) then shared files will be found in:
/usr/local/share/apps/celestia
The catch is that if you compile and install each way (as I did at one stage), you can find yourself editing a solarsys.ssc that isn't being used by the current installation. Make sure you edit the right shared files depending on what the current install was compiled to be.
I hope this helps anyone else who find themselves pulling their hair out for similar reasons.
As a small note - it might be nice to have consistent installation across desktop environments, though I don't use KDE much so I am unaware if it has strict guidelines on where shared files should go.
Thanks.