A Different Use for Celestia

[buggs_moran]

I get the same kind of questions from my students regarding "Armegeddon."

[Dollan]

You know, I love movies like that (well, I loved "Armageddon"; I thought "The Core" sucked on a bunch of different levels). To my dismay -- as Frank's post seems to account for, not to mention the number of posts about just this sort of thing on the Bad Astronomer's forum -- I'm starting to believe that I'm in the minority of those who watch these things for their pure escapist values. Too many people who *should know better* are taking them literally.

Why can't people just watch these things and say, "That was an *awesome* special effect!", and try not to put a factual face on it? The fact that these are films made in Hollywood should be enough to tell people that they're fiction!

Of course, it doesn't help to have the films hype up the fact that they have scientific advisers. Half the time these advisors are lacking a degree, and the other half of the time the advisors are certainly knowledgable, but ignored.

Gah, I could rant on this all day.... **wry chuckle**

...John...

[osmium]

Which in a sense brings us back full circle.

Apart from being a fun thing to do. Celestias' true value is in its educational ability for the user to visualize that funny old thing called 'The universe' through the special effect of it's own programming.

Os.

[t00fri]

Which in a sense brings us back full circle.

Apart from being a fun thing to do. Celestias' true value is in its educational ability for the user to visualize that funny old thing called 'The universe' through the special effect of it's own programming.

Os.

I definitely would not want to limit Celestia's use (mainly) to educational applications. Then we could have saved ourselves a lot of pain in make everything "super accurate". I bet many teachers using Celestia in their classes have little idea how high the accuracy of Celestia really is.

Bye Fridger

[buggs_moran]

I definitely would not want to limit Celestia's use (mainly) to educational applications. Then we could have saved ourselves a lot of pain in make everything "super accurate". I bet many teachers using Celestia in their classes have little idea how high the accuracy of Celestia really is.

Bye Fridger

That is probably true of teachers for primary and secondary schools Fridger, but that is okay. By making it highly accurate, we are supplying educators at all levels, not just at secondary schools, which your comment seems to suggest. I know of an astrophysicist that might try to use Celestia as a visual aid for a talk he is giving in England to "educate" others on his research of cataclysmic binaries. I have used it to introduce my 9 year old niece to the solar system, my teenage students to the local universe, and my parents to things they couldn't imagine before, and I (as a teacher) am well aware of it's accuracy. In all of my circumstances, the users do not need to know how highly accurate it is. But they may learn from it and develop a need for it's accuracy later on.

I agree there must be high accuracy. Without it, the program is limited to low end possibilities, and frankly is not worth the effort. You might as well show pictures from Astronomy Picture of the Day (which I do as well). As far as I am concerned, Celestia it is an educational application whose users range from the young to it's use as research/visualization aid for the highly educated. In all those cases isn't it educational? I would be more worried of it's use being twisted to mainly entertainment rather than education...

[t00fri]

Buggs,

well from a sufficiently general perspective many possible applications of Celestia can be called "educational". But as a matter of fact, the word "educational" --being very "fashionable" in the US-- does not even seem to have a literal translation in German, for example. The closest I could get would be the literal translation of "instructive".

Sure enough, Celestia is even "instructive" for me at times, although I consider myself as pretty well "educated"

What I can state is that Chris and I (and formerly Grant) pretty well agree in what we want Celestia to be like. It may also be known that I am rather critical as concerns certain popular "educational activities" in connection with Celestia. My main critique refers to the fact that in many such "activities" it is not made crystal clear where facts end and fiction starts. Since this is a potentially "hot" subject, let me not expand further here.

++++++++++++++++
Altogether, my dream is to make Celestia a unique sythesis of precision and stunning 3d graphics, as well as a reliable asto-physical data base of scientific standards. A most important aspect being Celestia's modular design and the many possibilities of expansion at the user level.
++++++++++++++++

Once we have done the best we can in this respect, time will show what possible applications of Celestia will prevail. I am deeply convinced that there will be many more than entertaining school children of various ages.

Bye Fridger

[tech2000]

++++++++++++++++
Altogether, my dream is to make Celestia a unique sythesis of precision and stunning 3d graphics, as well as a reliable asto-physical data base of scientific standards. A most important aspect being Celestia's modular design and the many possibilities of expansion at the user level.
++++++++++++++++

This will probably become true at Celestial Matter?

Bye, Anders

[osmium]

I just finished a session on Celestia and found in instructively educational whist also being highly entertaining!

OSmium

[georgiouk]

Hi to all celestians.
Please forgive me for my bad enlgish.

I would like at first to give many thanks and congratulations to the authorsof the Celestia.
I agree that Celestia can be " instructively educational " but I
think (and I really hope sb to convince me the opposite! ) that Celestia
cant be used as an educational program.
Educational program is a program
which can support students to learn some specific meanings through some experience with the program by themselves or with the guidance of their
teacher.
Berhaps its useful for the proffessors at universities to teach some
meanings or concepts of astronomy but I' ve been having some difficulties
trying to find a simple way to explain the movements of the earth around the sun ;aroung itsself.

Dear Vincent I saw your activities and I have to say that they are really nice
and its really great that you have achieved to use Celestia in this way. I am looking forward to seeing them complete.

K.Georgiou

[buggs_moran]

Georgiou

You are correct. On it's own, without any addons or instruction from outside, and without some prior knowledge of the universe, Celestia is not instructional/educational. However, with things like Vincent's overlays for information and Fsgregs educational addons, Celestia can be very educational. Education is not Celestia's primary purpose. It is more of a "a unique sythesis of precision and stunning 3d graphics, as well as a reliable asto-physical data base of scientific standards.", to quote Fridger. It can be used as a vehicle for education either through human instruction or educational addons.

[fsgregs]

The true value of Celestia to me as an instructor of high school Astronomy and Earth Sciences is its ability to visualise space. Kids are stuck in a classroom for 7 hours a day. Whether they are 10 or 20 years old, they really don't want to be in that building so long for so many hours of their lives. They really don't want to learn about the universe by sitting at a desk. If one has to absorb and learn facts about the solar system, it is sooooooo much more enjoyable to see Jupiter rotating below you, or swoop through the Cassini division, or realize just how dim the sun is from the surface of Pluto, or actually watch Deep Impact's impactor slam into a comet.

Likewise, when my students see Cham's rotating Black Hole with its stunning accretion disk and polar jets, or are able to hear the actual radio pulses from the crab pulsar (using the new sound feature), or can fly next to Sputnik as it orbits about the Soviet Union, they can really leave their school room and appreciate the wonder of the universe.

In my experience, their enthusium for space, and their retention of facts about Astronomy increases at least 3-fold when using Celestia as a key teaching vehicle. Given Celestia's great accuracy (thanks to Chris, Fridger and all of its scientific developers), I cannot image trying to teach Astronomy without it.

In the final analysis, it is as simple as that!!

Frank

[buggs_moran]

Well said Frank.

[osmium]

Thanks Frank,

You have summed up quite beatifully,

And... I find upon reflection that you , Buggs and Fridger have very valid points & ideas on what Celestia is , should be and maybe one day will be.

I still stand by my original post except to clarify that by 'educational'
I was not refering to any supposed "educational applications' but more a general use that that word implies in a literal sense.

Thanks

Osmium