http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/uncompress them then put the folders they make into the "extras" folder in the Celestia main folder(CHECK THE READMES, that's important!). Make sure you have the latest version though(1.4.1), it decreases the chances of incompatibilities. If you want to know what I used for these two files, the X2010 ESA, NASA, NASDA ships is under fictional:crafts and stations, and The Needle(Space Elevator) is under the same area of the website. These are OUTSIDE the "themed" sci-fi sections, Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, 2001 and Arcbuilders universes. Other interests are better textures for your planets and stars, including Sol, hell, I zoom close enough to Sol and I see animated solar flares. As far as the pictures, simple screen captures under Linux.
A couple of things, first, I did NOT make these files for Celestia, just used them and since a lot of the stuff related to space are mentioned on this site is theoretical, this program is PERFECT for illustrating the possibilities, especially when RUNNING it rather than viewing these screen shots. Hell, you should see the program now, with the Updated comet data on the site above, under Solar System:Comets, you can see those three comet fragments approach Earth, in Real Time. Granted, not a hundred percent realistic, the distances are correct, but the tails for these comet fragments are exaggerated, so you can see them easily while in orbit of the Earth. Takes some spinning around though. If you want a pic of that, I got that too, from a previous post, here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=125&topic_id=83475#83497Also, here's another post where I introduced Celestia, including other pics.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x19806ON EDIT: Some of these pics, especially the Horizon pictures, may seem unreal, the Mars one was done using yet another addon, one for Vallis Marinaris(probably spelled that wrong), that rendered it in 3D on the planet, but only for the valley, not a full 3D topographical map of the WHOLE planet, my system would have crashed and caught on fire if I tried that. :)
Basic trick for getting horizon shots, this works for any planet, moon, or even spacecraft, though for the spacecrafts, their radius is usually so small it takes a LONG time to zoom in. OK, so zoom into the planet until its surface is about ten or twenty kilometers away from you, the distance becomes an altimeter of sorts. OK, cool trick, your "spacecraft" can change views without you deselecting the planet you are focusing on. So, what you do is hit down on the arrow keys on the keyboard, this moves the Point of View up, like an aircraft, hold it down till you get a halfway decent horizon going on. Now, assuming you have a mouse with a wheel on it, you click that forward a few times, and the horizon shifts upward, you are moving CLOSER to the planet. Eventually you will see the surface disappear if you get too close, so keep a distance of about 2 or 3 kilometers at the minimum. OK, so another trick, because if you look at the surface, it appears to move below you as it spins, as if you are floating above the planet, and not really connected to it. So let's say, from the spot you are on, you want to see a Sunrise or Sunset, right-click on the surface of the planet and sync your orbit with it, this way you move as the planet spins, giving the effect that you are standing on it, rather than floating around it.
Basic controls for you "spacecraft" arrow keys next to ctrl, up points the nose down, down points the nose up, like an airplane, right and left yaw, or rotate the view, in those directions, changing the horizon angle. If you want actual lateral movement of the camera, that's what the Numpad arrows are for, numbers 4 and 6 turns the camera left or right. Up and down still works the same way.
Other experiments, hit the F8 button on the keyboard, and these controls, in addition to acceleration and deceleration are now turned over to whatever joystick you have connected to your computer. This is cool too, you could "fly" through space, pretending you are on a FTL spacecraft, you can move at many thousands of times the speed of light, though at this speed, you can find yourself out of the Galaxy really quickly. OK, just a couple of suggestion, play around with it, download a few other people's solar systems and custom models, both based on real life and sci-fi, and have fun. Hell, add hit detection, a good story, and a couple of other elements, and you would have a kickass scifi shooter or exploration game.
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