Celestia home page wrote:Celestia is a free real-time space simulation that lets you experience our universe in three dimensions.
Personally, I would sure like to see more of both -- space and universe -- in Celestia and in 3-D, even if only guesstimated. Somehow, looking at an add-on spiral galaxy that is only a few pixels thick (edge-on) just doesn't seem right.
There are other objects in space and in the universe besides the objects in our solar system, and contrary to what I've seen written in these forums, galaxies are not "dull gray blobs"! They are FULL of stars. How could they possibly be dull gray? Just look around the web for astrophotography web pages. Here is just one of 175,000 pages returned by Google (http://www.astropix.com/). This is not a grant-funded observatory, but a private individual and his personal telescope!
Here is the way M31 should look (http://www.astropix.com/HTML/SHOWCASE/M31.HTM). And here is M33 (http://www.astropix.com/HTML/SHOWCASE/M33.HTM).
Deep space objects in our own galaxy are not gray blobs either. Wanna see some amazing colors? This photo of the Rho Ophiuchus Nebula Complex looks like a photo of fireworks! (http://www.astropix.com/HTML/D_SUM_S/RHO.HTM)
We live in a VERY COLORFUL Universe
All of the above examples are photographs. They are not "compiled from data" from some satellite (x-ray, gamma ray, etc.). They are not "color enhanced", like HST photos. These are the real thing.
Is there any possibility of adding some color to the Celestia universe, aside from planets in our solar system? Along with some means of allowing deep space objects to be modeled and rendered in some 3-D manner, even though we have only 2-D photographs? It sure would be nice.
-Don G.