BEST astronomy program available

[mpiva]

   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

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.

[mpiva]

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.  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.

[mpiva]

@ 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]

   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 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, the instructional usefulness should smack you in the face.  You have galactic redshift survey plots, paralax error displays, background microwave maps, etc.

[mpiva]

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 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.

[mpiva]

@ 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.

[mpiva]

  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?