Neptune's Rings / Triton

[Guest]

Hello all. I decided to contribute back to Celestia by creating my favorite planet's rings, Neptune. You can find the texture at:

http://webpages.charter.net/myrkwood/celestia/neptune-rings.png

Move it to your textures/medres directory, and then modify your solarsys.ssc file to replace your Neptune entry with the following:

Code: Select all

#############
# Begin Neptune
#############

"Neptune" "Sol"
{
   Texture         "neptune.jpg"
   Color         [ 0.75 0.75 1.0 ]
   HazeColor      [ 0.6 1 0.75 ]
   HazeDensity      0.35
   Radius         24764
   Oblateness      0.01708

   CustomOrbit "neptune"
   EllipticalOrbit
   {
      Period      164.793
      SemiMajorAxis   30.06896348
      Eccentricity   0.00858587
      Inclination      1.76917
      AscendingNode   131.72169
      LongOfPericenter   44.97135
      MeanLongitude   304.88003
   }

   RotationPeriod      16.11
   Obliquity         28.32
   LongOfRotationAxis   49.235

   Albedo         0.41

   Rings
   {
      Inner    41900
      Outer    62983
      Texture   "neptune-rings.png"
   }
}

Note that beyond adding the rings, this entry also changes some data to reflect that found at http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/neptunefact.html. If you want to keep Celestia's original data, just copy the section called "Rings" into your current Neptune entry.

Also note that Neptune's rings are very faint, and you may have trouble seeing them on dim displays. Even as faint as my rings are, they are generally brighter than the real thing due to the limitations of an 8-bit alpha channel.

I highly recommend the Minor Moons Addon at http://ennui.shatters.net/celestia/files/minormoons.ssc, as some of the moons included orbit right next to the rings. I also recommend you visit http://www.mmedia.is/%7Ebjj/data/neptune/index.html for Bj?rn J?nsson's Neptune texture map. It requires some resizing to work within Celestia, but it's worth it.

I've also modified Vic Tannenberg's wonderful Triton texture. Specificly, I adjusted the color to something that should be a bit more accurate. If Vic doesn't mind, I'd like to make it available to download as well. ( I hope you're reading Vic. )

Enjoy Neptune!

Troy Corbin Jr.
http://knights.sourceforge.net

[Troy]

Here's a brighter version of the same rings. These are not as accurate, but they make for a more dramatic and beautiful planetscape.

http://webpages.charter.net/myrkwood/celestia/bright-neptune-rings.png

Enjoy.

[Troy]

I just got a reply from Vic saying that it's OK for me to share my modified Triton texture. You can find it at http://webpages.charter.net/myrkwood/celestia/triton.jpg.

Here is my current Triton entry in solarsys.ssc:

Code: Select all

"Triton" "Sol/Neptune"
{
   Texture      "triton.jpg"
   Radius      1353

   Atmosphere
   {
      Height   12
      CloudHeight 3
      CloudSpeed 640
      Lower   [ 0.5 0.5 0.55 ]
      Upper   [ 0.5 0.5 0.55 ]
      Sky   [ 0.4 0.5 0.6 ]
   }

   EllipticalOrbit
   {
      Period      5.876854
      SemiMajorAxis   354760
      Eccentricity    0.000016
      Inclination      157.345
      MeanAnomaly    120
   }

   Albedo      0.77
}

As per an MIT study found at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/1998/triton.html, Triton is suffering from Global Warming and it's atmosphere is believed to be twice as thick as was seen by Voyager 2. I am attempting to modify my Triton to reflect this data, as well as data found at http://www.solarviews.com/cap/nep/triclds.htm. So far my attempts at a thin, whispy cloud texture have been unrealistic, but if there is any interest I'll be sure to share it when I finish.

I'm also not declaring my base Triton texture as finished. This is merely version 0.9 Once I get a video card which supports all these wonderful bump maps and specular maps, I'll be sure to update it again.

[guest]

They look great, Troy - thanks! I went with the artifically bright rings, as I couldn't see the realistic ones

[Troy]

Thanks.

Here's more Neptune / Triton goodness:

http://webpages.charter.net/myrkwood/celestia/triton-clouds.png

Code: Select all

   Atmosphere
   {
      Height   12
      CloudHeight 3
      CloudSpeed 640
      CloudMap "triton-clouds.png"
      Lower   [ 0.5 0.5 0.55 ]
      Upper   [ 0.5 0.5 0.55 ]
      Sky   [ 0.4 0.5 0.6 ]
   }

Considering that we know Triton has clouds ( http://www.solarviews.com/cap/nep/triclds.htm ) and that, with the deeper atmosphere, those clouds are probably thicker, I think this texture should be as close to the mark as we can hope to get. Be sure to watch Triton spin at 100x or 1000x speed.

I've also found a wonderful source for a possible 4k or 8k Triton texture! The source is false color ( same as most circulating around the net ) but measures 4500x3500! I'm trying to make a nice new high-res texture with it but I'm afraid I've never created a spherical texture before, and it's comming out rather symetrical. If anyone is interested in tackling this, I'll be happy to help. You can find this source at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/PIAGenCatalogPage.pl?PIA00317.

[Troy]

The links for these textures no longer functions!

Instead, you can download them now from the following:

http://webpages.charter.net/myrkwood/celestia/celestia-pak-tec-neptune-1k.zip
http://webpages.charter.net/myrkwood/celestia/celestia-pak-tec-triton-2k.zip

You can also find these files on the WinMX Peer2Peer file sharing network.

[Darkmiss]

Wow this simply looks great, with the neptune rings
and the texture for triton and its clouds are fantastic

Thanks to both of you