Celestia

Encyclopedia : C : CE : CEL : Celestia

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For other uses, see (disambiguation)}}}.

Celestia is a free 3D astronomy program for Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. Created by Chris Laurel, it is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

The program, based on the Hipparcos Catalogue, allows user to display objects ranging in scale from artificial satellites to entire galaxies in three dimensions using OpenGL. Unlike most planetarium software, the user is free to travel about the Universe.

NASA and ESA have used Celestia, but it is not to be confused with [Celestia 2000], ESA's own program.

Functions

• Tour Guide
• Solar and lunar eclipse finder to the year 9999.
• Hipparcos Catalogue (120.000 Stars)
• It is possible to record the program as video file up to a resolution of 720x576 pixel.
• The time can be set as far in the future or past as you like. (except for overflow reasons you cannot go beyond year 5874774)
• Constellations and orbits of planets, moons, asteroids, comets and Satellites can be indicated.
• The names of all objects in space can be indicated: Galaxies, clusters, stars , planets, moons, asteroids, comet and satellites.
• The names of cities, craters, observatories, valleys, landing sites, continents, mountains and seas can be faded in.
• The radius, the distance, daily length and average temperature of the planets are indicated.
• The distance, luminosity in comparison to the sun, the class, surface temperature and the radius of stars are indicated.
• The number of visible stars can be varied.
• The field of view is infinitely variable.
• The apparent luminosity of the stars can be adjusted in three stages.
• The picture can be divided, in order to observe several objects at the same time.
• Speed of light can be included or ignored.
• Gamepad-Support

Limitations

There are some limitations in Celestia's modelling:

• The default setting for Celestia's Earth is a perfect spheroid, which means that low Earth orbit satellites are not modeled accurately. However, this setting can be adjusted.
• Many, if not most, binary stars are not yet properly simulated.
• Only objects which form part of a planetary system move; galaxies are stationary. Stars rotate about their axis, but do not translate.

Add-ons

More than 10 GB of extensions are available in addition to the base program. This enormous quantity is the result of the activities of a small, but very productive, user community which supports the program. These add-ons address the following subjects:

• There are many 3-D graphics and textures available as add-ons. Users can download fictional and educational add-ons, to show what a protostar looks like from the back in detail, or 3-D stars and solar systems. There is a specialised version of Celestia for educational users. The standard package can be used for fictional and theoretical 3-D texturing, scripts and animation.

• 3-D textures and models are also available for planet Earth, such as Stonehenge and some cities, or objects and landmarks on other planets, including fictional ones.

• There are several databases with objects in orders of magnitude from satellites and moons up to stars and galaxies. However, the extended star database possesses 2 million stars and the galaxy database nearly 2000 galaxies, whereby galaxy clusters are also visible. The Earth city database is expandable to 96 000 cities.

See also

• KStars
• Stellarium

External links