1CELESTIA(1) General Commands Manual CELESTIA(1)
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6 celestia - A real-time visual space simulation
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9 celestia [options]
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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 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.
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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 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.
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56 Mouse functions:
57 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 Keyboard commands:
65 Navigation
67 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 Free movement
76 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 Time
91 Space stop time
93 L Time 10x faster
94 K Time 10x slower
95 J Reverse time
96 Options
98 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 Other
118 ` Show frames rendered per second
120 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.
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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 May 23, 2001 CELESTIA(1)