[pyritechips]

I love astronomy, as I know some of you do too. If you have any shots you like, feel free to post them here.

I have a very good astronomy app that can generate a real-time view from any point in the Solar System or Galaxy and in any direction. Then I can capture it, as I have done here. This shot is my current wallpaper. It is a view of the nightside of Earth, about 62,000 km and looking towards Sol. To the upper right of the sun is the Pleiades:

[pyritechips]

Here's a shot I took of the beautiful Saturn:

[pyritechips]

One more for tonight: The Earth-Moon system on a backdrop of the Milky Way. From this vantage point, with the sun behind us, we are seeing the moon from a distance of 22,000 km and the Earth from 421,000 km.

P.S. If anybody wishes to use these pictures, be my guest. If you would like a personalized shot of our Solar System, featuring any planet(s), and any vantage point, feel free to ask and I will see what I can do.

[cjthib]

When I see these pictures I realize what a novice I am at photography. Wanting to learn as much as possible could you tell me how or what you used to get such awesome pictures? cjthib

[pyritechips]

Hello cjthib.

I actually know very little about photography. These are not photographs, as in taken with a camera, but computer generated. I used a program called Celestia. It is an 11 MB download and required excellent video processing power.

[pyritechips]

Here is a split-screen view of Pluto, Earth, Neptune and Jupiter, all from a distance of ~430,000 km, the maximum distance of the Moon from Earth.

[hewee]

Hey Jim get the free Celestia is a free real-time space simulation program.
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Opps I see you have the program.

[pyritechips]

Yes, Hewee, it is Celestia I am using. I had it for a while but it ran like s*** on my old video card, which was only 8 MB. Now that I have the 128 MB card with GL the programs just flies!! I like the way you can select a speed and a destination (star, planet, etc.) and go travelling! I just came back from a trip to Antares! It is 11,000 times more luminous than our sun so if you go, take plenty of sun screen!

[hewee]

Yea I bet it flies noe on the new video card. I know it does on my PC and you have twice the video them I do. I have 64 MB DDR video card and 512 DDR ram on a XP-1800.
It is a very cool program. I have not learned all the added things you can do with it but it's nice to have still.

[pyritechips]

If you have the newer v 1.3.1 you don't need any of the plugins. What I also did too was click on Help > Controls and printed out the instructions so they are easier to see while I try them out.

One thing you want to try if you want to make a screenshot or make a wallpaper is go to Render > View Options and click under Information Text: None. That will clear the screen of all the text.

[hewee]

I have version 1, 0, 0, 1 and I did install plugins.

You know if you can install over top or do you have to do a clean install of v 1.31?

Yes I know you can turn the text off.

[hewee]

I did an uninstall and a clean install but I was wrong on the version I had becuse it was celestia-win32-1.3.0 and the new version is celestia-win32-1.3.1-1.
But if you to the celestia.exe and right click on it it says under the version tab 1, 0, 0, 1
If you open celestia and go to help, about then your see it say 1.3.1.

[jjb]

Those are awesome generated images. Here is another image of Pleiades that you mentioned in your first post Jim. Because of your love for Astronomy you may know of this site but for those of you who don't I obtained it here
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
They have a space related picture a day along with a brief history or explanation of the image.

jjb

[jjb]

Here is an infrared real view of Saturn taken from the ESO's Very Large Telescope located in Chile.

jjb

[jjb]

Here is Saturn as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Both images were obtained from the images gallery here
http://www.space.com/spaceviews/