celestia

Solar System visualization

Version : 1.3.2
Author(s) : Chris Laurel,Clint Weisbrod,Fridger Schrempp,Christophe Teyssier,Deon Ramsey (UNIX installer, Gtk interface),Bob Ippolito (Mac OS X version),Christopher ANDRE (Eclipse finder),Colin Walters (endianness fixes),Grant Hutchison (solarsys.ssc guru),James Holmes
License : GPL
Website : http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Installs from Open Source Astronomy for Linux cd 1
Disk space required for installation is 8.84 Mb

This package is installed using rpm

After the package is installed it can be accessed using the command


		/opt/astro/bin/startcelestia

A shortcut will be installed in the KDE/GNOME desktop menu system,
as an entry in the Astronomy submenu

Summary

Celestia will start up in a window, and if everything is working correctly, you'll see Jupiter's moon Io in front of a field of stars. In the left corner is a welcome message and some information about your target (Io), your speed, and the current time (Universal Time, so it'll probably be a few hours off from your computer's clock.) Right drag the mouse to orbit Io and you should see Jupiter and some familiar constellations. Left dragging the mouse changes your orientation too, but the camera rotates about its center instead of rotating around Io. Rolling the mouse wheel will change your distance to the space station--you can move light years away, then roll the wheel in the opposite direction to get back to your starting location. If your mouse lacks a wheel, you can use the Home and End keys instead.