New Celestia-1.4.0pre-FT1.2 Version for Download

General discussion about Celestia that doesn't fit into other forums.
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t00fri
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Post #181by t00fri » 11.12.2005, 11:32

Wersadix wrote:
t00fri wrote:
Wersadix wrote:Hey Fridger, will you add in next version of Celestia FT other dwarf galaxies near the our Milky Way? Dwarfs like: Sagittarius Dwarf, Ursa Minor Dwarf, Draco Dwarf, Sextans Dwarf, Carina Dwarf, Aquarius Dwarf, Cetus Dwarf, Phoenix Dwarf, Tucana Dwarf and Leo II.

I hope it`s not too big request. :wink:

Actually quite a few Dwarf galaxies are already in my deepsky.dsc data base. What catalog do you recommend for the remaining ones? I need also distances, magnitudes, minor/major half axes, PA, hubble types. J2000 coordinates!

Bye Fridger

So, Fridger, you need help? Well then here`s some link`s I found lately:

First I found this page http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/galaxies.html which is ok, it have galactic coordinates, distances, hubble types and diameter.
On page http://www.seds.org/~spider/spider/LG/lg.html are some links that may be very useful, but coordinates are not too accurate, then I found following: http://www.astro.utu.fi/EGal/elg/ELGtable.html have very accurate
coordinates but i can`t find magnitudes, minor/major half axes and PA.
One thing i can`t comprehend is why is so hard to find these values?

And one more thing. How will you generate Axis line? I don`t see any way
to accomplish this reading the catalog! I`m confused, Fridger.


No, I don't really NEED help.

Notably since those data are INCOMPLETE (hence useless for celestia) and not "official" scientific publications. I will never use "semi-anonymous" WEB data for Celestia. Most importantly , the (absolute) magnitudes, min/max extensions and position angle (PA) are missing (as you already noted). Hence these data are completely useless for Celestia. The listed Dwarfs of the local group, where the available information is complete, are included in my catalog already. That's precisely why they are in and others (where the information is lacking) are NOT in.

I thought you have catalog sources or astronomical publications that I can use? Otherwise your suggestions are not very useful, unfortunately. I can easily exploit several /official/ catalogs jointly with PERL, but I need officially published results!

I will certainly NOT combine badly documented data BY HAND from a number of doubtful sources...

The axis-angle calculations are done with some simple subsequent quaternionic rotations, using the apparent min/max extensions to calculate the inclination angle relative to face-on view according to the standard formula (to be found in any major DSO catalog). The PA serves to calculating the rotation relative to north. Then there are additional quaternionic operations to transform into the celestia frame. This requires the RA,DEC coordinates and the ecliptic angle. After doing all these quaternionic operations in sequence and after standard decomposition of the resulting quaternion into [axis, angle], the data in my catalog follow straightforwardly.

That's just a few lines of PERL code altogether...What is /confusing/ here?

Bye Fridger

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Post #182by Wersadix » 11.12.2005, 13:14

I was ONLY KIDDING, Fridger. :roll: I dont want to hurt your ability to feel. 8O

But seriously, if somebody can find official data its you.
And if you find someting or you have some of those data can you post on forum or e-mail me?
"But I, being poor have only my dreams.
I have spread my dreams under your feet.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

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Post #183by ElChristou » 11.12.2005, 13:35

Wersadix wrote:...And if you find someting or you have some of those data can you post on forum or e-mail me?...


I think you should not worry, if Fridger find something official it will be included as soon as possible in the concerned catalogue...
Image

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Post #184by t00fri » 11.12.2005, 13:48

ElChristou wrote:
Wersadix wrote:...And if you find someting or you have some of those data can you post on forum or e-mail me?...

I think you should not worry, if Fridger find something official it will be included as soon as possible in the concerned catalogue...


RIGHT ;-)

Bye Fridger

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Post #185by Paolo » 11.12.2005, 16:09

Thanks Wersadix!
Those was almost exactly what I was meaning.

Image
Image

having 10000+ galaxies I would like to see the 2nd image in Celestia.

Kind regards
Remember: Time always flows, it is the most precious thing that we have.
My Celestia - Celui

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Post #186by t00fri » 11.12.2005, 16:33

Hi all,

this is to inform people in the forum that by now FT1.2
has been completely integrated into CVS
, including my
full deepsky.dsc galaxy data base with 10000+
galaxies
and my binary star data (with doubles
wrto nearstars.stc eliminated).

Moreover, I have just also committed code containing

1) An improved scheme implementing comet tail
fading
(between 4 and 6 AU distance in case of Sol).
Systems with several suns and luminosities different from
the solar one are accounted for. Chris' original rendering
code is however hardly changed (yet!).

2) A new simple scheme avoiding overcrowded galaxy
labels: They are now sorted according to apparent
magnitude
! Thus the labels of the brightest galaxies
pop up first upon zooming-in (i.e. SHIFT + mouse Left
movement)...

3) Significant dimming of galaxy brightness, if the
galaxy is viewed from /"inside"/, like the MilkyWay...

4) A fix for a clipping bug (spotted by Frank[fsgregs])
where /nebula/ add-ons vanished if viewed off the screen
center.

Moreover, there is

5) Pat's extensive overhaul of the Linux-gnome and
Linux-gtk versions!

6) Pat's implementation of auto-saving the adjusted galaxy
brightness increase relative to the default (so far only for
gnome and gtk flavors).


So people who know how to compile AND are
impatient ;-) should be able to build the latest &
greatest Celestia-1.4.0pre8 any time from CVS....

Enjoy,
Bye Fridger

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Post #187by Boux » 11.12.2005, 17:48

I am going to start grabbing the latest files right now and build :D

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Post #188by fsgregs » 12.12.2005, 02:29

Fridger:

:D All I can say is .... thanks!!!

If someone who knows how can compile the new CVS build for Windows and post it somewhere, all us MS Windows users would be moooooost grateful!!!!

Thank you again!!!


Frank

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Post #189by t00fri » 12.12.2005, 12:31

fsgregs wrote:Fridger:

:D All I can say is .... thanks!!!

If someone who knows how can compile the new CVS build for Windows and post it somewhere, all us MS Windows users would be moooooost grateful!!!!

Thank you again!!!


Frank


We have just discussed this morning to release an official Version (Windows) during this week! Perhaps even 1.4.0 final...

Bye Fridger

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Post #190by Wersadix » 12.12.2005, 16:01

Paolo wrote:Thanks Wersadix!
Those was almost exactly what I was meaning.

Image
Image

having 10000+ galaxies I would like to see the 2nd image in Celestia.

Kind regards


Thank you Paolo, I now for that site for a long time! :D

Great news, Fridger. Keep up with good work! :D
"But I, being poor have only my dreams.

I have spread my dreams under your feet.

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

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Post #191by Boux » 12.12.2005, 20:09

OK, I am trying to build with the latest CVS.
There are two issues.
First, I get a make error pointing to line 260 of configure.in
I solved it by installing all the GTK and Gnome core libraries.
This should not happen. I build with and run KDE and should not need GTK to be installed.
Then, I get the following error at the end of make's run:

Code: Select all

star.cpp: At global scope:
star.cpp:600: error: prototype for 'StarDetails* StarDetails::GetWhiteDwarfDetai        ls(const StellarClass::SpectralClass&, unsigned int)' does not match any in clas        s 'StarDetails'
star.h:102: error: candidate is: static StarDetails* StarDetails::GetWhiteDwarfD        etails(StellarClass::SpectralClass, unsigned int)
star.cpp:777: error: prototype for 'void StarDetails::setModel(const ResourceHan        dle&)' does not match any in class 'StarDetails'
star.h:53: error: candidate is: void StarDetails::setModel(ResourceHandle)
star.cpp:930: error: prototype for 'void Star::setPosition(const Point3f&)' does         not match any in class 'Star'
star.h:218: error: candidates are: void Star::setPosition(Point3f)
star.cpp:924: error:                 void Star::setPosition(float, float, float)
make[3]: *** [star.o] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/blah-blah...

Make exits without outputting a build.

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Post #192by t00fri » 12.12.2005, 20:25

Boux wrote:OK, I am trying to build with the latest CVS.
There are two issues.
First, I get a make error pointing to line 260 of configure.in
I solved it by installing all the GTK and Gnome core libraries.
This should not happen. I build with and run KDE and should not need GTK to be installed.
Then, I get the following error at the end of make's run:

Code: Select all

star.cpp: At global scope:
star.cpp:600: error: prototype for 'StarDetails* StarDetails::GetWhiteDwarfDetai        ls(const StellarClass::SpectralClass&, unsigned int)' does not match any in clas        s 'StarDetails'
star.h:102: error: candidate is: static StarDetails* StarDetails::GetWhiteDwarfD        etails(StellarClass::SpectralClass, unsigned int)
star.cpp:777: error: prototype for 'void StarDetails::setModel(const ResourceHan        dle&)' does not match any in class 'StarDetails'
star.h:53: error: candidate is: void StarDetails::setModel(ResourceHandle)
star.cpp:930: error: prototype for 'void Star::setPosition(const Point3f&)' does         not match any in class 'Star'
star.h:218: error: candidates are: void Star::setPosition(Point3f)
star.cpp:924: error:                 void Star::setPosition(float, float, float)
make[3]: *** [star.o] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/blah-blah...

Make exits without outputting a build.


Boux,

for whatever reason, you are NOT building the latest CVS code. The error of running into GTK stuff, despite KDE configuration was fixed already yesterday afternoon by Pat! I located that bug first. In addition that bug in star.cpp is also known and meanwhile fixed. It was from Chris. I have just compiled the latest CVS without any problems (with gcc 3.3.1).

Bye Fridger

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Post #193by Boux » 12.12.2005, 20:43

Hi, t00fri,
I have taken the files from here:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/c ... /celestia/
The latest files are dated just a few hours ago (2 hours exactly for configure.in)
Is this the wrong place?

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Post #194by t00fri » 12.12.2005, 20:58

Boux wrote:Hi, t00fri,
I have taken the files from here:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/c ... /celestia/
The latest files are dated just a few hours ago (2 hours exactly for configure.in)
Is this the wrong place?


No that sounds right. 2 hours ago where Pat's commit which I have implemented in my latest compile an hour ago. I had NO problems. That's all I can say.

Bye Fridger

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Post #195by selden » 12.12.2005, 22:24

1. My understanding is that the public anonymous CVS server is updated several hours after the developers' CVS server: about 5-6 hours later, I think. Unfortunately, I can't find a description of that delay in the SourceForge documentation right now.

2. Too often I've found that doing a CVS update does not always get all of the most recent files. I've frequently had to delete everything in the /src/ directory tree and download them again.
Selden

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Post #196by Boux » 13.12.2005, 07:51

selden wrote:1. My understanding is that the public anonymous CVS server is updated several hours after the developers' CVS server: about 5-6 hours later, I think. Unfortunately, I can't find a description of that delay in the SourceForge documentation right now.

2. Too often I've found that doing a CVS update does not always get all of the most recent files. I've frequently had to delete everything in the /src/ directory tree and download them again.


That would explain why some files which are tagged with a date only a few hours old may be in fact outdated.
However, some other files (ie stars.h) which are a few days old according to their tag may also be obsolete.
I don't know how often the public server is refreshed and how this is done.

It looks like it may happen that only the date tag is updated. Not the files themselves.

I have looked at the code of configure.in and stars.h and it is obvious that they are older buggy/test versions.

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Post #197by HB » 13.12.2005, 11:59

Fridger, Toti,

Perhaps you've seen the same kind of message earlier. That's right, but this forum is more often visited, by much more Celestia users, then the other forums.

Anyway, the period of absence of Chris has brought both of you briljant ideas.
Really amazing to see well shaped galaxies instead of the cottondots in the sky. Great work!!

Unfortunatly, there's still something I don't understand.
The distance and radius of the galaxies as expressed in the deepsky.dsc datafile(in LY) differs from the the values( in parsec) shown on the screen

To give you an example:
I've found in the large deepsky.dsc for the M33/NGC 598 the following information:
distance: 3.262e+6 (ly)
radius: 3.259e+4 (ly)

The information on the display gives:
distance: 989.58 Kpc
radius: 9.9918 Kpc

This is seen from "earth" about 1AU from the sun which is in the center of the screen. For conversion from LY to pc, I've used 3.26167.

On an approach to the M33 only the distance will change but the radius should remain the same.


I've compiled the latest release from CVS(2005-12-12) and have noticed that nothing has changed in the displayed distance and radius of galaxies.
It's a pitty to see that all the good work from Fridger and Toti to assemble 10610 records for the DSO database and with high precision positioning becomes more or less useless if the distance and radius maybe displayed accurate enough but to my humble opinion wrong.
Is there's any relation with the given Axis coordinates and/or Angle?
HB

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Post #198by t00fri » 13.12.2005, 18:46

HB wrote:...
To give you an example:
I've found in the large deepsky.dsc for the M33/NGC 598 the following information:
distance: 3.262e+6 (ly)
radius: 3.259e+4 (ly)

The information on the display gives:
distance: 989.58 Kpc
radius: 9.9918 Kpc

This is seen from "earth" about 1AU from the sun which is in the center of the screen. For conversion from LY to pc, I've used 3.26167.

On an approach to the M33 only the distance will change but the radius should remain the same.
...


HB,

sorry, but I don't see your problem at all!

Radius [Kpc] =3.259e+4 [ly]/3.26167 = 9991.814 pc = 9.9918 Kpc
Just as displayed!

The distance is a little more tricky: The catalog value refers to the distance from Earth to the center of the galaxy in question, while the displayed values in [Kpc] refer to the distance to the galaxy border for good reasons! I checked again the displayed distance to M33 from the Earth surface and find from deepsky.dsc in the CVS:

M33 distance: 990.11 Kpc

which is in complete agreement with this explicit calculation:

Distance to galaxy center[ly] = 990.11[Kpc] * 3.26167 + 3.259e+4 = 3229412.1 + 3.259e+4 = 3.2620e+6 [ly],

just as written in my deepsky.dsc catalog.

So what again was your problem in your several threads about this point?

Bye Fridger

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Post #199by HB » 14.12.2005, 09:32

Fridger,

Thanks for your clear answer,

I've to admit, it's partly a mistake by me :oops:
But the explanation for the distance is more or less what I'm looking for. Concerning the distance there no problem anymore.

In the future is there any change to get the same kind of approach for Globular and Open clusters?
HB

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Post #200by Boux » 14.12.2005, 09:39

t00fri wrote:Hi,

people trying ElChristou's technique of overlaying several different kinds of bmp2pts templates will end up with brightness values in the fourth column of the .pts template that are significantly >1.0. Which is BAD.

Here is a 4 line Maple (Lua ;-) ) code that properly normalizes such resulting multy layer templates. You may easily carry the steps over into the computer language you know best:

Code: Select all

> S:=readdata("SBb.pts",[float,float,float,float]):
> nops(S);
                             10650
> bmax:=max(seq(op([i,4],S),i=1..nops(S)));
                            1.70079
> writedata("X.pts",[seq([S[i,1],S[i,2],S[i,3],S[i,4]/bmax],i=1..nops(S))]):


It's very easy to understand:

The first line reads in here an unnormalized SBb.pts template into an array called S. The second line counts the number of "records" (with [x,y,z,brightness] values, each). It's 10650 in this example. The next line calculates the maximum brightness value (4 th data column) which is 1.70079 here. Finally, the data are written back onto some file "X.pts" where the brightness column has been divided by the maximum value in S, such that all values remain <= 1.0, as it has to be!

That's it.

Bye Fridger


Hi, there,
To illustrate t00fri's comments, here are two screenshots of the Milky Way as rendered with the same template.
The first one has not been normalized and contains a lot of stray overbright blobs with a value of 2.
The second one has been normalized to a maximum brightness of 1 thanks to a pass into an Excel sheet.
The difference is pretty dramatic.

Edit: this is with Celestia v1.4.0pre8 for Windows running on my Dell laptop at work (runs smooth and great) :wink:

Template with brightness peaking at 2
Image

Same template with brightness normalized at 1
Image


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