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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 21h

Looking at Mars again. Awesome planet.

Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

On the 4th of October, 1957, Sputnik 1 became the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, marking the beginning of a new era for humanity. You can watch Sputnik 1 orbit the Earth in Celestia with this add-on: celestia.mobi/resources/it...

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

We have deprecated the Win32 frontend of Celestia in favour of focusing on our Qt 6 frontend, as we don't see the point in maintaining this ancient, Windows-only frontend anymore. From now on, builds of 1.7.0 for Windows will only include the EXE for the Qt frontend.

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Here's a small cluster filled with young, hot stars in front of a much larger cluster of cool stars.

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

New profile banner to celebrate the succesful launch of #NASARoman!

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Celestia mobile 26.8.1 for Apple devices has been released. This update lowers visibility of PSF stars in daytime atmospheres, adds ISO 8601 option for date and time display, rearranges some settings, changes default atmosphere render settings, and includes content updates. GitHub release page

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Celestia mobile 26.8.1 for Android devices has been released. This update lowers visibility of PSF stars in daytime atmospheres, adds ISO 8601 option for date and time display, rearranges some settings, changes default atmosphere render settings, and includes content updates. GitHub release page

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

A sunrise on Earth, simulated in Celestia. The addition of separate Rayleigh and Mie scale heights has vastly improved Celestia's atmospheric scatterer. #space #planetarium #opensource #simulator #OpenGL #computergraphics #rendering #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Speaking of the wordmark, the very old logo shown when starting up Celestia has been replaced with the new wordmark.

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

It's been more than 20 years since Celestia's iconic splash screen was created. Celestia has come a long way since then. Time for a refresh! @askaniy.bsky.social made the skeuomorphic version of the Celestia wordmark seen on the new splash screen, paying homage to the old splash.

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Celestia mobile 26.8.0 for Apple devices has been released. This update makes atmosphere rendering take eclipse and ring shadows into account, adds more eclipse viewing options, includes content updates, and introduces a new version numbering system. GitHub release page

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Celestia mobile 26.8.0 for Android devices has been released. This update makes atmosphere rendering take eclipse and ring shadows into account, adds more eclipse viewing options, includes content updates, and introduces a new version numbering system. GitHub release page

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

(🧵4/4) Eclipse shadows also affect atmospheres, here is a modified Earth with a taller atmosphere and rings. Here, you can see an eclipse in the northern hemisphere darkening the atmosphere and affecting the scattering, and rings creating grooves just as they did with Saturn.

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

(🧵3/4) An awesome side effect of this change is that the shadows directly affect the atmosphere rendering, just look at how Saturn's ring shadows block the sunlight and appear to create grooves of varying sizes in its atmosphere:

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

(🧵1/4) Celestia has never taken ring and eclipse shadows into account when rendering atmospheres, meaning that the atmosphere did not darken, and this became a much more apparent issue with the new atmosphere renderer. In the latest build however, this is no longer the case.

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Celestia mobile 1.9.22 for Apple devices has been released. This update adds improved atmosphere rendering, settings for mesh self-shadowing resolution and HDR tonemapping, includes content updates, and adds support for more actions in Shortcuts. GitHub release page

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Celestia mobile 1.9.22 for Android devices has been released. This update adds improved atmosphere rendering, settings for mesh self-shadowing resolution and HDR tonemapping, and includes content updates. GitHub release page

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

A closer view of the inner moons:

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Celestia now uses the TASS 1.7 theory to simulate the orbits of the Saturnian satellites. This model provides increased accuracy many thousands of years into the past and future. #space #astronomy #OpenGL #opensource #simulator #planetarium #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

44 Nysa in Celestia, now including its moon and an accurate 3D model showing the asteroid's unusual shape. #space #astronomy #OpenGL #opensource #simulator #planetarium #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

At the highest settings, this Dell laptop (i5-1335U) runs Celestia with the new atmosphere renderer at 45-60 FPS, and lowering the settings increases performance with a minimal loss in quality. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #simulator #planetarium #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

WIP new atmosphere parameters for Triton and Pluto. Very tenuous atmospheres, you might not even see them on your screen, so I've included a screenshot with an increased exposure as well. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #simulator #planetarium #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Wrap lighting can be used to fix an error with cloud rendering around the terminator of an object. Here is what that looks like with Titan, and a real photo of Titan for comparison. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #simulator #planetarium #CelestiaProject

"N1736054355" by Gordan Ugarković, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ugordan/11715675036/

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Side-by-side comparison of a sunset on Earth, left is using the latest master build, right is using the HDR build. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #simulator #planetarium #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Sunset on Earth with the improved atmosphere rendering, parameters, and HDR tone mapping. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #simulator #planetarium #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Improvements have been implemented. In the third image, Titan's atmosphere has a much softer edge, this is achieved by simply lowering the AtmosphereExtinctionThreshold in the source code. #space #simulator #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

By using the Chapman function, scattering can be made more realistic, especially for tall atmospheres. Here's what that looks like with Titan. Not final, subject to change. #space #simulator #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Here's dusk on Earth (left) and Mars (right) using the new atmosphere definitions. #space #simulator #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Earth's atmosphere has been overhauled using data from various studies, and true colour images as a reference. The same has also been done for Venus, Mars, Titan and Pluto. #space #simulator #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

New Steam store page and library assets using the new branding!

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

The Tarantula Nebula, it's just enormous!

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Now that sRGB rendering has been added, we can revert the Earth's atmosphere parameters back to the ones used before 1.7.0, making it more accurate to true colour photos of Earth. Views from the surface also look better. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #CelestiaProject

Earth in Celestia with 1.7.0 atmosphere parameters. This atmosphere code was implemented long before sRGB rendering, and wasn't designed to work with it, thus it looks unrealistic.

Earth in Celestia with pre-1.7.0 atmosphere parameters. When combined with sRGB rendering, this atmosphere code provides a much more realistic appearance.

A sunset on Earth in Celestia with 1.7.0 atmosphere parameters. The sun is above the horizon, yet it is quite difficult to spot.

A sunset on Earth in Celestia with pre-1.7.0 atmosphere parameters. The sun is clearly visible above the horizon, and the colours of the sky are much more accurate to real life.

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Made a new Twitter account. Really don't like this handle..

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Celestia mobile 1.9.18 for Apple devices has been released. This update fully releases the new PSF star renderer, which can be enabled by going to Settings > Renderer > Star Style! Download from GitHub

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Celestia mobile 1.9.18 for Android devices has been released. This update fully releases the new PSF star renderer, which can be enabled by going to Settings > Renderer > Star Style! Download from GitHub

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

This habitable planet at the edge of the universe is an old favourite of mine

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Experimenting with ring rendering. Simple specular reflection, and backlighting when viewed from an angle where the parent star shines through. Here's a demonstration with Saturn. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #simulator #planetarium #CelestiaProject

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Realistic limb darkening is the next improvement to be added. Previously, limb darkening was done by drawing a sprite in front of the star which created a central glow effect, that worked but was far from being visually accurate. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #simulator

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Would be great to watch it in person, but at least I can watch the live stream and simulate it!

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Here's what this looks like with the new star renderer! Exposure of the stars is wrong but that's just to show off. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #simulator

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

We're testing out an implementation of Eric Bruneton's precomputed atmospheric scattering model in Celestia. Pros: more realistic than our in-house model first released with 1.5.0 in 2008. Cons: heavy, Earth's atmosphere parameters alone are 17 MB. #OpenGL #opensource #rendering #computergraphics

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Twitter has restricted the account for a reason that I can't find out and now I can't tweet anything. Amazing!

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Celestia mobile 1.9.17 for Apple devices has been released. This update rolls out experimental and optional sRGB rendering, a huge step towards realistic visuals in Celestia. It can be enabled by going to Settings > Renderer > Advanced, then restarting the app. Download from GitHub

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Celestia mobile 1.9.17 for Android devices has been released. This update rolls out experimental and optional sRGB rendering, a huge step towards realistic visuals in Celestia. It can be enabled by going to Settings > Renderer > Advanced, then restarting the app. Download from GitHub

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

With Celestia mobile 1.9.14, you can now tap on the start and end dates of a spacecraft in the info menu to travel to that point in time. This makes it easier to follow the progress of historic missions, as you no longer need to manually set the time.

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Celestia has reached 1 million unique installs on Google Play!

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

25 years, a quarter of a century. That is how long it has been since @claurel.bsky.social released Celestia on the 26th of February, 2001. Since then, we sure have come a very long way. Happy 25th Anniversary everyone! We hope the next quarter century is just as eventful for Celestia.

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