1CELESTIA(1)                 General Commands Manual                CELESTIA(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       celestia - A real-time visual space simulation
7

SYNOPSIS

9       celestia [options]
10

DESCRIPTION

12       This manual page documents briefly celestia, a 3D space simulator.  Ce‐
13       lestia is a real-time visual simulation of space in our local region of
14       the  universe.  Choose  a point within about 1000 light years of Earth,
15       and Celestia will show you an approximation of how it would  appear  to
16       your  eyes were you actually there. Some of what Celestia shows is nec‐
17       essarily hypothetical--the farther away from Earth you  get,  the  less
18       real  data  there is and the more guesswork is involved.  Thus Celestia
19       supplements observational data with good guesses  based  on  models  of
20       stellar and planetary processes.
21
22       Celestia  is  unique  in its ability to allow you to navigate at an im‐
23       mense range of scales.  Orbit a couple kilometers above the surface  of
24       a  tiny,  irregular asteroid, then head off toward Jupiter, watching it
25       grow from a bright point of light into a looming  sphere  filling  your
26       field  of  vision.  Leave our solar system entirely and observe the sun
27       as it fades from a brilliant disk to a bright star, disappearing almost
28       entirely  as  you head off toward the Upsilon Andromeda system to orbit
29       around its innermost giant planet.
30

OVERVIEW

32       Celestia will start up in a window, display a welcome message and  some
33       information  about  your  target (top left corner), your speed, and the
34       current time (Universal Time, so it'll probably be a few hours off from
35       your  computer's  clock.)  In Celestia, you'll generally have an object
36       selected; currently, it's Eros, but it could also be  a  star,  planet,
37       spacecraft,  or  galaxy.   The  simplest  way to select an object is to
38       click on it.  Try clicking on a star to  select  it.   Right  drag  the
39       mouse  to  orbit  arround the selected target.  Left dragging the mouse
40       changes your orientation too, but the camera rotates about  its  center
41       instead  of  rotating  around the target.  Rolling the mouse wheel will
42       change your distance to the space station--you  can  move  light  years
43       away, then roll the wheel in the opposite direction to get back to your
44       starting location.  If your mouse lacks a wheel, you can use  the  Home
45       and End keys instead.
46
47       Press G and you'll zoom through space toward the selected star.  If you
48       press G again, you'll approach the star even closer.  Press H to select
49       our  Sun, and then G to go back to our solar system.  You'll find your‐
50       self half a light year away from the Sun, which  looks  merely  like  a
51       bright  star  at  this  range.   Press G three more times to get within
52       about 30 AU of the Sun and you will be to see a few planets become vis‐
53       ible near the Sun.
54

USAGE

56       Mouse functions:
57
58       Left drag      orient camera
59       Right drag     orbit the selected object
60       Mouse wheel,
61       Middle drag    adjust distance to selection
62       left click     select target, double click to center
63
64       Keyboard commands:
65
66       Navigation
67
68       H     Select the sun (Home)
69       C     Center on selected object
70       G     Goto selected object
71       F     Follow selected object
72       Y     Orbit the selected object at a rate synced to its rotation
73       ESC   Cancel motion
74
75       Free movement
76
77       HOME   Move closer to object
78       END    Move farther from object
79       F1     Stop
80       F2     Set velocity to 1 km/s
81       F3     Set velocity to 1,000 km/s
82       F4     Set velocity to 1,000,000 km/s
83       F5     Set velocity to 1 AU/s
84       F6     Set velocity to 1 ly/s
85       A      Increase velocity by 10x
86       Z      Decrease velocity by 10x
87       Q      Reverse direction
88       X      Set movement direction toward center of screen
89
90       Time
91
92       Space   stop time
93       L       Time 10x faster
94       K       Time 10x slower
95       J       Reverse time
96
97       Options
98
99       U    Toggle galaxy rendering
100       N    Toggle planet and moon labels
101       O    Toggle planet orbits
102       V    Toggle HUD Text
103       I    Toggle planet atmospheres (cloud textures)
104       W    Toggle wireframe mode
105       /    Toggle constellation diagrams
106       =    Toggle constellation labels
107       ;    Toggle earth-based equatorial coordinate sphere
108       B    Toggle star labels
109       P    Toggle per-pixel lighting (if supported)
110       [    Decrease limiting magnitude (fewer stars visible)
111       ]    Increase limiting magnitude (more stars visible)
112       {    Decrease ambient illumination
113       }    Increase ambient illumination
114       ,    Narrow field of view
115       .    Widen field of view
116
117       Other
118
119       `   Show frames rendered per second
120
121       It's possible to choose a star or planet by name:  press Enter and type
122       in the name, and pressing Enter again.  You can use  common  names,  or
123       Bayer  designations  and HD catalog numbers for stars.  Bayer and Flam‐
124       steed designations need to be entered like "Upsilon And" and "51  Peg".
125       The  constellation must be given as a three letter abbreviation and the
126       full Greek letter name spelled out.  HD catalog numbers must be entered
127       with a space between HD and the number.
128

AUTHOR

130       Celestia  has been written by Chris Laurel <claurel@gmail.com> and it's
131       available under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public  Li‐
132       cense from https://celestiaproject.space/
133
134
135
136                                 May 23, 2001                      CELESTIA(1)
Impressum