Celestia / News: Recent posts

Celestia version 1.5.1 is now available for download from SourceForge. 1.5.1 is a bug fix and translation release that offers no new features beyond what it is in 1.5.0. The translations in 1.5.1 are much more complete than in 1.5.0 and fonts with Japanese, Chinese, and Cyrillic character sets are now included in the standard package. For details on the bug fixes, see the 1.5.1 change list at http://www.shatters.net/celestia/151changes.txt

After nearly two years of development, Celestia 1.5.0 is now available. This is the biggest update of Celestia ever, with significant improvements in rendering quality, accuracy, and flexibility.

Celestia uses OpenGL 2.0 shaders to compute atmospheric scattering effects, giving a much more realistic appearance to planets with atmospheres. A Lunar-Lambert photometric model was introduced to more accurately model the reflectance characteristics of dust covered bodies such as the moon. Per-pixel lighting effects are used for better looking specular surfaces.... read more

I've checked in the source for version 1.03 of Celestia and begun a routine of regular checkins at SourceForge. Here we go . . .

--Chris