Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: mpiva on July 30, 2004, 12:01:51 AM
-
Ok, I know many of you are interested in astronomy so will be interested in this program but I'm going to have to stretch to make it "Amiga related". So I'll start with:
I NEEEEED SOMEONE TO PORT THIS PROGRAM TO AMIGAOS4 OR MORPHOS!!! Preferably both but I'm more of an Amiga supported, however if a MorphOS version was made, I'd definately switch preferences. ;)
What the heck am I talking about?
Celestia (http://www.shatters.net/celestia)
This is simply the most powerful, accuate, gorgeous, and easy to use astronomy program I have ever found, and best, it's OPEN SOURCE.
Celestia has the 3D positions of ~200,000 stars (complete with size, magnitude, spectral class, etc) and all the planets, moons, comets, EXTRASOLAR planets, several asteroids, and some satellites. Everything is beautifully texturemapped and light sourced. Even the asteroids and satellites are not just points but full 3D texturemapped models.
To give you an idea of the level of detail: for Earth I'm using an 8192x8192 bumpmapped (so mountains cast accurate shadows) texture with a 4096x4096 cloud texture that rotates just slightly slower than the planet ~5km above the planet's surface. As the surface texture rotates away from the sun, the "day-side" texture fades into the "night-side" texture displaying the nighttime lights of the cities.
And if the incredible amount of REAL detail is not enough for you, there are TONS of addons with everything from more stars (up to 2.1 million), nebulas, galaxies, more satellites/spacecraft, to FICTIONAL objects. I've downloaded all the Babylon5 addons and often go to Epsilon Eridani to watch B5 orbit its planet with a Starfury and Whitestar flying around the station. Off in the distance I can see an Earth Alliance ship entering the Jumpgate. However, the RingWorld addon is really quite amazing too.
If you have even the slightest interest in astronomy, you owe it to yourself to download this program. It really must be seen and used to truely appreciate it, and it's a relatively small download too. It's available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and hopefully the Amiga if there's some ambitious programmer out there.
For those who do try it, please let me know what you think. I'd try to make a port myself but I'm not that good of a programmer. However, I'd love to betatest it for anyone who does want to try. ;)
-
If you're into *serious* astronomy, you should try
Digital Almanac (Demo available at Aminet). 200.000 stars
is not that much...
Greetings,
Scholle
-
I got Distant Suns when it came out. I think the latest version I have is 4.1. I have all the Messier Catalog objects.
I'll have to try Celestia, it sounds very cool. But can you add objects?
-
@scholle
Hum,
As reported here,
The creator of Digital Almanac
has decided to give up all development on the Amiga.
DA for OS4 was supposed to arrive this year,
but sales of the Morphos version
told him the AOS4 version
won't sell at all.
RIP.
-
scholle wrote:
If you're into *serious* astronomy, you should try
Digital Almanac (Demo available at Aminet). 200.000 stars
is not that much...
Greetings,
Scholle
Obviously you didn't read the entire post. The default config contains 200,000 star, but I'm using the expanded addon which contains 2.1 MILLION stars. Also you seam to be missing the most important point. Celestia is not just a simple planetarium, like Digital Almanac, it contains all the objects (including stars) positions in 3D. I can actual GO TO say... extrasolar gas planet Edasich B and SEE that it is 70,000km in diameter (calculated from its mass), and I can WATCH it obit star Edasich (HD 137759) at a distance of 1.5786 AUs. I can see where all the other stars are in its night sky or what its sun looks like from the surface of the planet. It's quite huge BTW, as Edasich is 11.01 time the size of our sun and 40.6 times as luminous making its apparent magnitude a whopping -29.78 from this location (from earth, 102.19ly away, its apperant magnitude is only 3.29) If I want more information on Edasich B, I can click on it instantly taking me to here (http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/HIP75458.html). Likewise I can do the same with the star itself.
I call that SERIOUS astronomy. If I want to look at the night sky from Earth, I'll go outside. If I want to look at the night sky from Regulus, I'll load up Celestia and go there. You should have done two things before you replying to my message; you should have read the ENTIRE post, and you should have downloaded the program an tried it for yourself. Besides, I have to BUY Digital Almanac, which isn't even being made anymore for the Amiga, whereas this program is FREE.
-
@blobrana
I don't see how he can base AOS4 sales on MOS ones. That's folly as far as I'm concerned. I'd think Amiga owners would be much more willing to shell out cash than the blue folks. After all, they're gonna hae to pay for AOS4, not just get it for free. Basing sales on the freeware crowd isn't a good idea.
-
It's OpenGL and claims to have no linux specific code. although they also say old VooDoos will have trouble with the textures... The website with lotso f add-ons (last link) didn't load here... will try again later.
Sounds plausible port.
-
@weirdami
Hum,
maybe theres more to it, than just what he stated...
I`m sure that he thought giving up on his `baby`
was the right decision at the time...
i personally use distant suns,
though i would love to see
DA back on track...
E-mail flood his
mailbox?
no..
-
weirdami wrote:
I don't see how he can base AOS4 sales on MOS ones. That's folly as far as I'm concerned.
No, because, at the moment, almost twice as many Pegasos have been sold than AmigaONEs, and I'm not talking upgrades from Peg-1 to Peg-2. Even then the number is probably less than 2000.
And so out of the maybe 1200 AmigaONE or owners out there, 1 in every 600 need an astronomy program, and of those only half are willing to pay, it doesn't amount to many sales, does it?
I'd think Amiga owners would be much more willing to shell out cash than the blue folks. After all, they're gonna hae to pay for AOS4, not just get it for free. Basing sales on the freeware crowd isn't a good idea.
That's nonsensical FUD I've seen splashed all over AmigaWorld a lot, and there isn't one single shred of evidence for it. Truth is there is more commercial software for existing and lined up for MOS than there is for OS4 (exluding silly vapor promises), and the commericial developers like Titan have already made decisions based on that. Don't be deluded into thinking that OS4 users are more magically willing to spend because they consider themselves the "true Amigans supporting the Amiga" - they're just as cheapskate or willing to pirate as anyone else, and the state of the Amiga market since 1996 proves it.
-
hum,
@KennyR
You forgot the
[color=CC3300][/color]
bit
-
@mpiva:
OK, I overlooked the update possibility. And I understand that you're mad about Celestia. But please listen: I've done astronomy as a hobbyist for about 13 years. There's no point in switching perspective to Regulus or some extrasolar planet we know nearly nothing about. The reason is simple: Within many, many years noone will be able to GO there and do it in real, not even using robots. The surfaces of any extrasolar planet, besides the fact that all of the known ones will probably be gas giants, are totally unkonwn. Does it look like Jupiter, more like Saturn or like Uranus? Why should I want to watch such a picture when I KNOW it's wrong? This is rather infotainment than astronomy as a science.
But this is not the amiga point: Judging from the website of DA I thought it is still in development for OS4. Sad if it is no more. But you could still buy a copy for OS3.x. I'm sure Achim Stegemann would be very happy about every single user who did so. If it were enough, maybe he'd change his mind and go for OS4.
We Amiga users are a small community by now. Since MorphOS it is even more so, and the subgroup of users interested in astronomy is even smaller. So maybe you found a good program, but for a userbase thus small there's noone who would do the enormous work of porting a big astronomical program for free. As Celestia is Open Source, so a port had to be. If you were able to find anyone who did the porting, it would amaze me totally. I'm sorry to say that, but the Amiga reality has become rather sad.
I'm sure nearly everyone here in the forum could name at least five good programs that would deserve porting. Plus being much more important for our platform. I'm saying this not because I do not WANT to see a good astronomical software for free using OS4, no: I'd love to use it. But other fields are much more important. Open Office would be the first program I'd like to see ported, then a Partition Magic clone, then...
I hope you get my point.
Greetings,
Scholle
-
@scholle
Well put,
And sadly
true ,imho
-
@ Scholle
Don't get me wrong, I think Digital Almanac is a GREAT program for what it does. It's really too bad it's not being developed anymore, we need programs like that to keep the Amiga alive.
I was offended by your implication that Celestia is not a "serious" astronomy program. I know that the programer has taken GREAT effort to make the program as realistic and scientifically accurate as possible. It serves a completely different purpose than "planetarium" type programs.
Ok, you may not care what space looks like from a distant star or extrasolar planet. Lets bring things closer to home.
I've sat on Mars and watched the sun and moons set through the simulated atmosphere. I didn't appreciate how tiny the moons are until I saw how small they were in Mar's sky compared to the moon I'm used to. Sure, I have a physics degree, I could have calculated their size from that location, but I didn't have any reason to ponder this until I saw it first-hand.
I can get a small sense of how Neil Armstrong felt by downloading the Lunar Lander addon, and standing just behind it on the Moon's surface and watch the Earth rise (I can make it even more realisitic by turning the visible magnitude limit down as low as possible so I can't see any of the stars in the sky ;)
Already, Cassini images are being imported into high resolution textures to add to the accuracy of the Saturn model. Heck, I can even download the Cassini model and have my camera follow the probe as if I was riding it.
This is hardly "infotainment", but if you really want to see ONLY what is accurately known, you can always turn the "limit-of-knowledge" textures on.
There are other practical uses too. In another thread on Amiga.org not too long ago, I saw people discussing how to calacute the distance between two stars. Again, I can do the math, but it's easier to load up Celestia, go to Star A, point to Star B, and write down the number (and it will even calaculate the apparent magnitude of Star B from Star A while it's at it)
Just a quick question, as you didn't make this clear. DID you try the program?
In regards to the viability of a port; consider how I started this thread. I know the currect Amiga situation; I posted this because I thought some Amiga.org users might like this awesome program. I thought I had made it clear that I was only mildly serious about someone porting this to the Amiga, and mentioned it if only to PRETEND this thread was Amiga related.
@ everyone else
I find it absolutely unbelievable that even this simple thread has become LITTERED with garbage. This was a thread about Celestia, NOT AOS4 vs MorphOS users or A1 vs Pegasos sales. Please keep the junk messages out of my thread.
-
@mpiva
Thankyou so much for pointing me in the direction of this amazing application!! Truely wonderful, just wasted a lot of time doing such things as watching the sun come up on the day I was born.
The Demo script is also pretty good!
Thanks! I really would be nice to see something like this ported to AOS4 instead of yet another FPS game :-)
-
I used to use a program occasionally called 'Starry Night' - a demo came free with a book called Universe, which was a course book of mine at university - I still have it, great book.
I wasted quite a lot of time with that too! Anyone else here used it?
I shall also check out the couple of progs mentioned in this thread :-)
-
I have to agree with scholle, this is not a particularly useful program. In its current state, it isn't useful for making real observations. I would be hard pressed to find a use for it in the introductory astronomy courses I have helped to teach.
Simply put, it is eye candy. It is very nice eye candy, but that doesn't change its nature. What the Amiga really needs at this point (judging form the Amiga OS 4 and Morphos software list) is substance — something which you'll use for a few years without getting bored with it. A real planetarium application may fit the bill, but I have serious doubts about the user base being large enough to justify that type of software.
-
Hum,
from my viewpoint as well i agree,
You can't make accurate predictions (in it's current version) about celestial events with it ...
But as eye candy it's nice for a rainy day...
And deep down i wish that frontier elite version # had been like that...yes, the amiga version...And if anyone wants to port it then fine; but can you please include some thargoid ships and work in some Alien breed code, so i can frag them when i land planetside...??
BTW By Crom! Nothing wrong with thread-bending, it's almost compulsory at A.org.
-
What sort of real observations and accurate predictions are you refering to. Perhaps there's a way of doing what you want that's not as obvious as it is in planetarium software. I have a hard time believing the lack of accuracy especially after reading this (http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3969) on Celestia's forum pages.
Also, having taken an intro Astronomy class at university I see a wealth of useful applications for the student using Celestia. It is a great way of demostrating Absolute vs Apparent magnitude and showing how the later changes with distance, for example. Also taking a look at some Celestia addon dataplots (http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/extrasolar.html#dataplots), the instructional usefulness should smack you in the face. You have galactic redshift survey plots, paralax error displays, background microwave maps, etc.
-
Hum,
last time i used it was just before the transit of venus...
june 8 12:19...(try positioning it over scotland, and seeing last contact) useless to get anything accurate from a screenshot.
Where as (say) duistant suns will load up and i can get accurate figures to within a few seconds, and all in a space of time it takes to hyperjump to the kitchen and boil a kettle...
-
scholle wrote:
Judging from the website of DA I thought it is still in development for OS4. Sad if it is no more.
Digital Almanac is currently ported to AmigaOS 4 by an external programmer:
http://www.amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2004-05-00155-DE.html
-
Superb!
Good work that person!
(in advance of it being finished)
:-)
-
>As reported here,
The creator of Digital Almanac
has decided to give up all development on the Amiga.
DA for OS4 was supposed to arrive this year,
but sales of the Morphos version
told him the AOS4 version
won't sell at all.
---
AFAIK there is no MorphOS version.
They used the 680x0 version probably and because of MorphOS 680x0 JIT compiler it is running very fast.
-
blobrana wrote:
Hum,
last time i used it was just before the transit of venus...
june 8 12:19...(try positioning it over scotland, and seeing last contact) useless to get anything accurate from a screenshot.
Where as (say) duistant suns will load up and i can get accurate figures to within a few seconds, and all in a space of time it takes to hyperjump to the kitchen and boil a kettle...
Well, a quick search on google for "Celestia Venus Transit" shows that a lot of other people were able to get it to work. If you have Celestia installed, use this Cel script with your webbrowser cel://SyncOrbit/Sol:Earth/2004-06-08T03:40:15.36437?x=w8i8iEt4Jzy6DA&y=KRRrs3QLNg&z=ROlqEir6PqsP&ow=0.973905&ox=-0.021616&oy=0.105505&oz=0.199777&track=Sol&select=Sol&fov=37.419052&ts=1.000000
Granted, as I said before, using Celestia like a planitarium obviously won't be as EASY as using an actual planitarium program, but it can be done and it's far from inaccurate like you suggest.
Also check out this link (http://www.shatters.net/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=Calculus) and see all the other cool celestial phenomena that can be viewed ACCURATELY with Celestia, many of them not possible to observe with a simple "planetarium" program.
-
I ran through a few of the demonstrations on the website and did find a few of interesting ones. Is it a good educational tool? In most cases those demonstrations would have had equal effect if you used a couple of photographs. In a couple of cases this program, or a video, would have been more effective (the orbit of Pluto/Charon come to mind). It is important to note that the useful demonstrations involve the dynamics of the solar system. The orbital paths were also interesting, because they are more meaningful in a 3-D context.
The survey data that you pointed out would be interesting as an educational tool, but I have reservations. These reservations are based upon how well we know the distances to the data represented. (I will say a bit more on that later.)
Accurate? I would need more information. In general, I wouldn't trust any demonstration involving observations outside of the solar system. There is very little data concerning the distance to stars. When we do have data, it is because they are near by, belong to a multiple star system (binary, open or globular cluster), or are a particular class of star. It is important to note that distances in the last two cases should only be regarded as pretty good approximations. As for the historical appearance of the solar system (ie. anything more than a few centuries in the past or future), my understanding is that we have very little precise knowledge due to irregularities in mass distributions and such. These irregularities may not make a large difference, but they may be significant in the context of archaeoastronomy.
Ultimately the question is, is this program useful for the Amiga? Seeming as it is a toy for personal gratification, and that relatively few amateur or professional astronomers are interested in that form of gratification, I would say no. People will tend to use this type of program for a short period of time, become bored with it, then move on. A sky almanac/atlas program is a tool. As long as the user is interested in astronomy, and as long as the program suits their needs, it will have a use. Even so, I would have extreme reservations on how useful a digital planetarium would be on the PPC Amigas/Pegasos when other critical applications are missing.
-
@ macto
Well obviously still photographs will be just as instructional, if not more, than a program's screenshots. While Celestia can be used quite nicely as a visual aid, it is better used as an educational TOOL. To look at pictures, and even videos only has a limited amount of impact. However, being able to manipulate data and freely move around in its space gives a person a whole different perspective and deeper comprehension.
For example, when I mapped out the ~50 known galaxies in the Local Group, I had a fairly good idea where they all were. BUT, when I modeled them in 3D (not in Celestia BTW, I'm still working on that), and began to move around in that space, only then could I truely visualize the structure of the Local Group (yes, I know the distances aren't accurate... I gathered the data and did all the calcs myself, I'm perfectly aware of the errors involved but I still know a lot more about the Local Group now than I did before)
You're missing the most useful potential. Don't forget Celestia is available for many different platforms, it doesn't require too high spec a machine (if you keep the detail down), and most importantly is FREE. I know good free planetarium software exists too and for some uses a planetarium program is easier to work with. BUT IF IT DOESN'T COST ANYTHING, why not let your students take advantage of what it IS good for?
The only reason I would NOT use a good free program for teaching is if it taught bad science, but this is not the case with Celestia.
>Accurate? I would need more information.
Perhaps you should check then. Just like anything, you have to check out the source. I know the base installation of Celestia is VERY accurate. However, whenever I download addon modules, I always read how the maker of the module got their data. For example, when I download the expanded star set I read up on how the data was gathered and the errors that were involved. BTW, a PROFESSIONAL astronomer helped compile this data. I know the distances aren't accurate, but now I also know the error in those calaculations. I learned a lot of REAL astronomy from that read, stuff I'm sure you don't teach in your astronomy classes.
I also find it interesting that you are reluctant to use some of the dataplots because of the uncertainty in distance calculations, especially considering that one of the dataplots does exactly that; it graphically depicts the uncertainy in the object's distance. The educational benefit to this dataplot seems obvious.
In regards to historical appearance, how are planetarium programs any MORE accurate?
Any benefit for the Amiga? Please read previous posts; I dealt with this in message 13 of this thread. But I take offense to you calling Celestia a "toy" and the many professional and amature astronomers (including myself) who frequent the Celestia Forums would seem to disagree with your statement about a lack of interest in this kind of program.
For those who think I'm getting to worked up about some people not liking Celestia, please understand, I don't care if you just don't like the program and find using planetarium software easier for what you want to do. I'm okay with that. I'm offended by people implying that no "real" astronomer would be interested in Celestia, because I AM a REAL physicist and amature astronomer. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to astronomy. If you're not interested in Celestia, fine, but don't call it a "toy for personal gratification". I don't know how you define "a short period of time" but I've been using Celestia for several months now and it seems the more I use it, the LESS bored I get with it and the more I realize just how powerful the program is.
-
The BEST astronomy program on the Amiga is without a doubt, Voyager. I am surprised nobody mentioned it! It is really a unique program, one that I am proud to have in my Amiga...
-
Hmmm. I haven't heard of that program. Is it freeware/shareware/commercial? What makes it so unique and where can I find a copy to try out?