Celestia – Real-time 3D visualization of space

117 pointsposted 11 hours ago
by LordNibbler
(celestiaproject.space)

28 Comments

dysoco

3 hours ago

When I was a kid I used to play a bit with Celestia, but I remember I was pretty scared whilst using it... there was some kind of dread/anxiety I felt just looking at the vast void of space and something giant like Jupiter or Saturn next to it, I always thought an UFO or something was gonna pop out of nowhere.

I don't know if this feeling is common or not but I do remember reading about someone here on on Reddit feeling a similar thing, I believe it to be similar to thalassophobia.

Rooster61

2 hours ago

This. While it wasn't Celestia (I was playing around with Orbiter), I ran into a very similar, very specific scenario. In Orbiter, you can fly to planets using orbital mechanics a la KSP but on a true scale. Frustrated that I was having trouble getting to Saturn using a Hohmann transfer, I eventually said fuck it and just input coordinates that put me just a little ways outside of Saturn's atmosphere.

Upon hitting the button to warp to the coordinates, I was presented with an entirely flat, beige plane. Thinking I had screwed up the coordinates, I began zooming out. Since Orbiter renders to scale rather than the scaled down planets in KSP, I began to realize that there was no mistake, and just how small my ship was relative to Saturn. It literally gave me a shiver. It's so hard for us humans to really perceive how mindbendingly big things are in space in a direct sense.

Verdex

an hour ago

I have maybe 2 hours total usage time with celestia from years ago.

I still occasionally have pseudo nightmares from the pov of using celestia to orbit 'scary' celestial objects.

I'm not exactly sure what the deal is because I never had any conscious reactions to using the program. But apparently it made some sort of impact.

aeve890

3 hours ago

Same! I lost days looking for the most distant galaxies and traveling to them. I always felt the same anxiety of the emptiness thinking why the universe doesn't give us a way to explore it, why I was born so early or in a _lame low tech planet_ (in a lame low tech country) or how incredibly diverse could be the life out there. I remember being fascinated by the sheer number of galaxies and then "wait, this app doesn't even zoom _into_ galaxies", which is another level of infinityness, and that was just overwhelming. Man, I feel depressed now.

florbo

2 hours ago

If you want to fly around galaxies and feel insignificant, Space Engine is pretty good for that. It's not a true simulation, as most things are procedurally generated unless an addon is installed, but it certainly captures the scale of things.

aeve890

6 minutes ago

I gotta check. Now I got my fix with Elite Dangerous.

vodou

10 hours ago

Great project! Been using it for years together with VTS [1] to visualize real-time and propagated satellite positions and attitudes, and also star tracker and payload "beams".

[1] https://timeloop.fr/vts/

septune

3 hours ago

Decades ago, I patched Celestia to add a Star Trek–style warp speed selector, only to realize that even at maximum warp, I was still crawling along like a snail. At least it was a fun hack.

moritonal

5 hours ago

One thing I kind of always want to see when I find cool resources like this are "How are you funded?". Because if it's not clear then have to there's a high risk it's a rug-pull, virus or might one day be either. There's just too many secretive "Here's a super free perfect tool for you!" rug-pulls out there.

"We're funded by the goodness of a team of volunteers" is a great answer.

aarond0623

4 hours ago

Celestia had been operating for years. I was using it 20 years ago.

dotancohen

5 hours ago

Are you new to the concept of open source?

moritonal

2 hours ago

That's rude. Yes, I've contributed to a few. However, here is a list of open-source software that've notoriously turned to unethical decisions when pressured into getting funding.

Audacity: Free until 2021 when they were bought and introduced telemetry.

Streamlabs: Open-source but tried to monetise and attack the OBS brand

Bitwarden forks: Various forks of open-source code that included monetisation

OpenOffice: Great desktop apps until bought by Oracle

CCleaner: "free" software that contained trojens.

HoverZoom: Chrome plugin sold by original dev, new update included spyware and ads.

As I said, I don't mind if the answer is "we are volunteers who love this", but I do ask that formal webpage presenting a product, that even has an FAQ page, explains it's funding model. Their github (https://github.com/CelestiaProject/Celestia) is much better at this.

OrderlyTiamat

an hour ago

It is my experience that if there is a github for a project like this, that's usually a much better source of information than the landing page.

CodeCompost

2 hours ago

I'm surprised there isn't a version that runs on browsers using Emscripten.

aktuel

4 hours ago

Is there an option to increase the font size? The text is unreadably small on my 28" 4k display.

trklausss

4 hours ago

Now somebody gotta do it as a mod for KSP, it would be sick to have this level of detail and launch missions through the solar system.

Yes, I know Real Solar System is a thing, but still :D

i4k

8 hours ago

This website does not work with Oculus Quest browser, it goes to the "oh noes" page, i guess the meta browser has some issues with the bot detection algorithm.

lifeinthevoid

7 hours ago

Brave also exhibits this behavior, turning off shields fixes the issue.