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Old 04-16-2002, 05:08 PM   #1
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Thumbs up Cool download!

If you're interested in astronomy and have a decent 3D video card, check out <a href="http://www.shatters.net/celestia" target="_blank">www.shatters.net/celestia</a> . The program "Celestia" is only an 11 meg download (!) but it contains a fully 3D, fully rendered model of the solar system and indeed the galaxy. You can zoom in on any planet, star, etc., and watch them rotate/revolve in real time (or in 10x, 100x, 1000x etc. real time, which tends to be more dramatic). If you have a card with pixel/vertex shaders (i.e. a Geforce 3), some of the effects are really spectacular. This is definitely the neatest free program I've ever seen.
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Old 04-16-2002, 05:31 PM   #2
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For an amature astronomer that program rocks!

-SK
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Old 04-16-2002, 11:18 PM   #3
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Oh man thats fun. Spent an hour zooming around in that thing. It's interesting viewing the constilations from a distant star. I wouldn't expect such an image to imerge from our sky drawings (a nice 3D starburst, with all lines appearing to point back at sol) but I guess it makes sense.

thanks for the link
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Old 04-17-2002, 09:53 PM   #4
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Playing with that program is cool.

Watching my roomate's face when I zoomed in on Earth, then shouting "Second star on the right and strait on till morning", however, was priceless

Whoever made this program deserves an award.
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Old 04-18-2002, 02:21 AM   #5
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oh man is that cool or what, and I just downloaded the low-res version cause my home PC only has 8meg on the vid card and it still blew me away. , wonder if the boss would mind me downloading the hi-res version at work?
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Old 04-19-2002, 10:51 PM   #6
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WOW!!! Me and the wife are having a ton of fun playing with this! Thanks!

btw, if you have a really good 3d card (I have a GF3 Ti 500) turn all the options on and crank up the stars. It's amazing

Oh, and crank up the time and watch the solar system move from Earth's perpective. SWEET!
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Old 04-22-2002, 01:12 AM   #7
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Cheers for that, just sent it to my brother-in-law who's almost finished his course in celestial navigation.
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