Celestia/1.7.0 Changes

List of changes in Celestia 1.7.0 (work in progress).

Rendering

 * Blackbody star colors are default
 * Fading orbits (can be toggled)
 * On ringed planets, the side of the rings facing away from the star is in shadow
 * makes objects brighter - apparently this is correct?
 * Sprite nebulae fade at a distance
 * Visibility of different object types (planets, moons, etc), as well as rings, can be toggled individually
 * Stars and planets can be rendered out to a distance of 1 billion light-years (increased from 10 million light-years)

Info display

 * Dwarf planets and minor moons are shown in the right-click menu of their parent body (they aren't in 1.6.x)
 * Temperatures are calculated for circumbinary planets

Data

 * Updates to most data files, models, and textures
 * Default temperatures and bolometric corrections for main-sequence stars updated

Audio

 * Audio support has been added - thread

STC files

 * - in degrees Kelvin
 * - the number of magnitudes by which the star's light is extinguished
 * - the number of magnitudes by which the star's light is extinguished

Spectral classes

 * - for Y-class brown dwarfs
 * - for Wolf–Rayet stars of the oxygen sequence

SSC files

 * - in Earth units
 * New albedo parameters. Described in this issue, although the actual implementation isn't exactly the same as what was suggested.
 * - ; replaces
 * - the visible average global reflectivity
 * - this is added to the calculated equilibrium temperature
 * - in degrees Kelvin; overrides
 * - for comets
 * - for comets

Units
For many parameters, units can be specified in angle brackets, like this:

Length
For e.g.,  ,


 * - meters
 * - kilometers
 * - Earth radii
 * - Jupiter radii
 * - solar radii
 * - astronomical units
 * - light-years
 * - parsecs
 * - kiloparsecs
 * - megaparsecs

Time
For e.g.


 * - seconds
 * - minutes
 * - hours
 * - days
 * - years

Angle
For e.g.,  ,


 * - milliarcseconds
 * - arcseconds
 * - arcminutes
 * - degrees
 * - hours of Right Ascension
 * - radians

Mass
For


 * - kilograms
 * - Earth masses
 * - Jupiter masses

Solar mass units weren't added, despite my suggestion to do so.

Locations
New location types can be found here.

Scripting
See CEL/CELX Scripting Documentation on celestia.mobi for new CEL/CELX commands.