FINALLY - Celestia Educational Activities released for 2005

[fsgregs]

Hi everyone:

I am pleased to finally announce the release of Celestia Educational Activities for 2005. They consist of 12 separate journeys through Celestia space, each taking from 1 - 4 hours to complete. They are designed for use by anyone in or out of a classroom. They include hundreds of hours of extensive revisions to pre-existing Activities with new updates, new facts and lots of new add-ons. These include Planet 10, the two new moons of Pluto, ElChristou's new spacecraft, Cham's new black holes, new fictional worlds ... the list is extensive!!!

Most importantly, I am delighted to announce the new release of Activity 9 - The Primitive Earth and Moon, and Activity 10 - The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Both of these Activities take 2 hours or more to experience, and push Celestia to its limits. They make use of some great special effects. In fact, I have to say that both Activities are SPECTACULAR and represent a blend of science fact and graphical depiction that really demonstrate what we have all been working so hard to do ... introduce the visual world of Astronomy to a lay audience in a stunning way. They also really showcase the wonderful gifted talents of Jestr, Don Edwards and Runar Thorvaldsen.

Activity 9 takes you back 4.1 billion years to a time when the Earth was a primitive ball of rock and primodial ocean orbiting a new star. There was no moon. Then, a rogue planet named Orpheus crashes into Earth and both worlds essentially break apart. A huge ring of molten debris is tossed into orbit and over time, cools and comes together by gravity into the Moon. This is the most accepted theory of lunar formation.

If you have never taken an Educational Activity journey, THIS is the one to take. You will see some wonderful planet textures, accurately drawn and extensively discussed in the Activity text. Then, you will actually see the collision occur with debris being thrown off and a huge ring of hot debris with hundreds of pieces of glowing rubble tossed into orbit. Over time, you will see the ring, the debris, the remains of Earth and the newly forming moon change over time ... developing ... cooling ... healing. Don and Jestr simply outdid themselves here, and gave me wonderful material to work with. I introduce you to some of the geology of the changing worlds. There is even SOUND!

I've packaged Activity 9 in high-res dds format with tons of rubble, and a medium-res jpg version with a smaller rubble field that does not overtax your computer. Download only one or the other.

Here are a few screenshots from that Activity:











Activity 10 takes you all the way to the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies and conveys to you the true size of the cosmos. It then discusses in detail the world of SETI and the problems inherent in finding extraterrestrial life forms. Visually, it is a great treat, taking you to several fictional worlds, including stops in the solar systems of StarTrek, Star Wars and the magnificent fictional system of RAN in the Trifid Nebula. Runar's Ran system is simply ... the most beautiful set of worlds created to date for Celestia (in my humble opinion). I try to take you to some of its best spots (while keeping the add-on sizes manageable). It comes in both dds and jpg versions.

Here are screenshots from that Activity:










To take all journeys, you MUST use a new customized version of Celestia called Celestia-ED. It is a modified version of version 1.4.0pre6.5, with a command line option activated. You can get it on the Activity websites at the link below. It will install into a different folder and will not disturb your existing installations.

You can also use the newly released 1.4.0pre7, and Fridger's new 1.4.0 FT 1.2 versions of Celestia, but some files will have to be modified. The download websites have a read-me file explaining what to do.

The Activites can all be enjoyed on Windows, MAC and Linux. However, we are still trying to work out some kinks in getting the MAC and Linux versions of Celestia itself to work properly with the Activities. Please be patient. I hope to have it worked out soon.

The Activities require the use of Microsoft Word 2000 or later. However, a free MS Word Viewer can also be used. Links to it are on the websites below.

A detailed Letter to Users and Educators is included with the Activities and can be downloaded from the sites below. It explains each Activity in detail and gives you tips for how to best enjoy them.

The Activites and all add-ons for them are available at the newly revised Educational web page on the Motherlode at:

http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/educational.php

and at my own personal website located at:

http://www.gregs-educational.info.
Note that this site is slower than the Motherlode.

If you've downloaded Activities in the past, discard them. All Activities have been updated and revised.

I hope you enjoy these trips through Celestia space. Please email me at fsgregs@comcast.net if you find any bugs and I'll try to work through them with you. All Activities have been tested on multiple machines and should work OK, but bugs can always creep in.

Feel free to post your praises and comments here on the forum.

Thanks to Joe Bolte and the gang on the Motherlode for helping me update the Educational Page.

Enjoy.

Frank, Don, Jestr, Runar, Joe and all of us crazy volunteers.

P.S. - If you like the Activities and want to take all the journeys but don't want to spend hours downloading and installing, they are now available for sale, packaged on a convenient auto-install CD set. Email me and I'll give you details.

Frank

[Cham]

COOL !

In few months from now on, I expect a lot more of new users from "out there" !

[Jeam Tag]

Hi everyone:
I am pleased to finally announce the release of Celestia Educational Activities for 2005. Frank

Nice Frank! I'll have a look at the medres versions in few days, but I've linked yet these releases on my catalog http://jeam.tag.free.fr/CELESTIAhtml/Ce ... ammes3.htm with a brief presentation in French. Hope nothing important is missing Thanks again all for these activities. Jeam

[Dollan]

I spent all day downloading these things, and I cannot wait until after work today to play with them! Thanks for this outstanding effort, Frank!

...John...

[buggs_moran]

OK, holy freeking WOW. Nice job guys. Love the animation. Sorry, I had to chop it down a bit for the web, but oy!!! I'll try to make a better one later. Thank you for all of your hard work. This will be great for the classroom.

[Smacklug]

Agh! It's still unzipping to FT1.2, I even deleted all the different versions I had of celestia except for my main one!

Agh this is making me mad! I really really want to see Activity 9!

[fsgregs]

Dear Smacklug:

Sorry you are still having trouble.

The zip file on Motherlode's education page now contains an install file that installs specifically and only into a Celestia-ED folder. To make sure of it, I fixed and edited the file about 5 days ago.

Please revisit Motherlode, download the new Celestia 1.4.0-ED for Windows file, unzip it and try again. It should work now fine.

Regards,

Frank

[selden]

Be sure to explicitly reload the Motherlode Web page. Sometimes Web browsers display obsolete versions of pages even though they've been updated.

[Smacklug]

Well, I got it mostly working by copying over the FT1.2 files into the Celestia-ED folder, the only thing that's weird with it is that I can't change the target of the "Activity Shortcuts" for some reason. What do they do anyways?


Also, Activity 9 is awesome!

[fsgregs]

If you are trying to use FT 1.2 with the Activities, you must make some changes to the Activity_Shortcut files in the shortcut folder. Download the Read-me file about using FT 1.2 from Motherlode and follow its instructions.

I'm glad you like Activity 9.

There are two types of shortcuts in the shortcut folder. One is a Windows shortcut to Celestia-ED and will have a Celestia icon. Those shortcuts specifically launch Celestia from each activity because they are called from within the Activity document when you click on the first linked image. Without them, you cannot see any of the add-ons in a particular Activity.

You will need to change them if you intend to use FT 1.2

The 2nd shortcut is a simple shortcut to each Activity document. It will have a "DOC" Word icon. By clicking on them, you launch the Activity document. You can do the same thing by opening the folder called Educational-Activities and clicking on the document directly.

It is not a good idea to copy over files in Celestia-ED with files from FT 1.2. Most of them will work but a few of them may not work properly. For example, I have certain configurations that have been set in the main celestia.cfg file, and in the start.cel. If you do not use the cfg file provided, an Activity may not work.

Regards

Frank

[statemonkey]

Hi, I wanted to ask a question about Mac related updates for the Education version of the program. I work at an elementary school that uses both Mac and PC, but I only have a MAC at home. I would love to run the program myself at home and see if I can quickly adapt any of the lessons for the lower grades.

I would love any advice or answers on the matter. Thanks!
- statemonkey

[fsgregs]

Dear statemonkey:

In the last two weeks, the Celestia program has been updated to a new released Windows and LInux version named 1.4.0 final. The volunteers who work on the MAC version of Celestia are preparing that latest release in MAC format as well. I hope they will be done within the next week or so.

As soon as they are done, I will get the Educational Activities optimized for use with the MAc version of 1.4.0 final and will release them on the Motherlode website.

Please stay tuned. I'll keep you informed. It hopefully will all be ready within two weeks or so.

Frank

[danielj]

I have only two "problems' with the Activities.
First,clicking once don??t work.I have to click once plus Ctrl.
Other thing is when I am positioned to go to Beteugelse and I press the F7 key,I go BACKWARDS and the star become farther and farther out.Do you know what is the problem?

[fsgregs]

Danielj:

first,clicking once don??t work.I have to click once plus Ctrl.

The click with Ctrl is a feature of MS Word that is their default way of activating a hyperlink in a Word document. To fix it so that you only have to click hyperlinks once, do the following:

1. Open the "Tools" menu at the top of MS Word
2. Choose the "Options" menu
3. Click on the "Edit" tab. A new menu will appear full of boxes. Find the line that reads "use Ctrl + click to follow hyperlink" and uncheck the box.
4. Click OK.

From that point forward, you will be able to click only once on an Activity link to activate it.

The problem with going backwards away from Betelgeuse is caused by the use of the "lookback" command. In the Activity, users are instructed to switch between forward view (which is standard), and rear view (using the [Shift+*] keystrokes). The document asks you to do this a few times, to compare the direction you're going with the direction you left. If you lose track of even one of the commands, and forget to switch back to forward view or rear view when instructed to do so, you will think you are moving toward Betelgeuse when in reality, you are moving away.

To fix the problem, simply follow the instructions line by line in that particular section of the journey, making sure you switch from forward to rear view every time it says to do so. Hopefully, that should fix it.

Regards,

Frank

[danielj]

The zip file with around 400 MB have the CelestiaED.exe,but it appear that some files are missing to work correctly.Because I unzip the files to the Program Files,create the folder CelestiaED and then cute and paste inside it.Then,I unzip the Activity 3 to the folder,but when I tried to open the activity(Ctrl+click),CelestiaED found an error and crash before opening.
I tried the other method,create the CelestiaED folder,copy the entire Celestia FT-1.2 and then unzip first the 400 MB zip file and then the Activity 3,and in this case,Celestia DON??T OPEN AT ALL.
The beggining tour works flawlessly,but this Activity 3 is going to be hard to work.Do you have any idea why is going wrong?

[fsgregs]

Daniel:

Please tell me what the Celestia error message says

Frank

[danielj]

Sorry,now the Activity is working,but when I use the Activity 3_Solar System.doc,the Apollo 11 don??t show off.My Apollo 11 models are inside the folder Activity-extras like this:
Activity-extras>Activity_3>spacecraft>Apolo_11>models & etc
Do I need to put the Apollo 1 models inside Celestia-ED>models,too?
Second thing:
I copied the Celestia FT-1.2 and now I have two Celestia.exe:celestia.exe and celestia-ED.exe.Do I have to stay with both?
Other thing:If I delete the original Celestia FT-1.2,the Activity don??t work.So now I have 3 Celestia.exe and they are occupying space in my HD.Is it possible to have only one or maybe two?

Daniel:

Please tell me what the Celestia error message says

Frank

[danielj]

There is no error message.
Only that the probes disappeared,ISS and Hubble have simple textures and the Sun has no proeminences.Earth,too,don??t have hi res alt texture.I install and uninstall several times,followed the instructions and nothing happens.For some reason,in the first time I saw the Activity 3,everything works fine.But now I can??t return to that point.Can you help me?

Daniel:

Please tell me what the Celestia error message says

Frank

[fsgregs]

daniel:

I wil send you a detailed set of things you can try via primate message, so we don't clog up the forum here.

Give me a day or two to put it together. I can reply this weekend.

We will get you working just fine. I promise.

Frank

[Andy74]

Dear Frank,

first of all, thank you VERY VERY much for your Educational Activities, a great piece of work and art!
Now I have just one (simple) question.
If I'd like to use the Celestia 1.4 final version together with your activities, I think this should be possible in the same way as using FT1.2 according to your provided description. Is this right? Or do some further changes have to be considered?

Regards
Andy