Arturo100, you better read the instrutions to understand what each texture does better

I don't know how to edit the alpha channel.

Arturo100, maybe you need a bit of help with GIMP tools. Since it's quite a vast program, you could watch video tutorial channels on youtube like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaOEhs ... QIJ3db--Ag or others, where they guide you step by step.

I am running SE 0.9.8.0 on two different machines.

My Toshiba Satellite laptop is newer and running Windows 10.

My Dell desktop is older and running Win XP but is the more powerful machine of the two. The Dell will fly through
 most programs that the Toshiba struggles through.

SE is running on both for me but with limited levels of success. I have a problem with planets and systems disappearing
 intermittently on both of them, then they re-appear, and then disappear again for no appearent reason that I can
 find - I am making no changes on them from day to day, but they will be there for a day or two, and then vanish for
 awhile, and then one day they will be back for one day, and then be gone again on a later opening of the program.

From what I can see (and I am not a computer guy), there is a line in the SE.log file that appears when the planets
 dissappear, and is not there when the planets are not missing. The problem for me is, no changes are made to any of
 the files in the \catalogs\planets folder, and the line of interest;

WARNING: LoadUserConfig(): Unknown reference body "TerraNova (Tau Cet 4B)", using universal coordinates

appears to come and go at random, even though I am always using the same script file every time, and that planetary
 name does indeed appear in my script file.

I am having other issues with my Dell, but I will post later on those.

I am attaching the SE logs and script files related, if I can figure out how.....


- this morning when planet appeared fine;  se_Toshiba - with terranova.log


- this afternoon after planet became missing;  se on Toshiba - terranova no-show.log


- missing planet - TerraNova_(Tau_Ceti_4B).sc


- parent body of missing planet (this body orbits Tau Ceti) - Poseidon-TauCeti.sc


Thanks,

senuaafo, I see no problems in your code for Poseidon or Terranova, they work fine.
Probably you switched links, because the first one shows that SE can't load Terranova from scripts.
Part of the issue can be traced in one of the other scripts loaded from the addons folder: SE loads these scripts in this order, then it finds some trouble with object names.
I guess you exported a whole existing system, copied maybe in Tau_Ceti_planets.sc.
Then this happens: and so on. The thing is, SE is perfectly fine with planet names "1", "10", "5", if assigned by itself in procedural planets, but they conflict with other names when loaded from a script, so they should all have unique names.
I'd suggest to rename all objects with a prefix like "TauCeti ", so you'd have "TauCeti 1", "TauCeti 2.D1", etc.

Edit:
I see you asked about "forbidden names" previously, I guess you could say that simple numbers like "1", "5" they indeed are "forbidden" for the reason I wrote above.

The manual doesn't explain well where to put or name the dust pattern image for a galaxy.
Also my image for the galaxy just looks too dim.

The manual doesn't explain well where to put or name the dust pattern image for a galaxy.

From Creating a Deep Space Object, Creating textures:
4) The next step is selecting the interstellar dust pattern. Dust is brown streaks visible on
the galaxy’s spiral arms. Near the center you can see how they gradually disappears into a
yellow "fog" – the spherical bulge of the galaxy. Select the dust like you selected the stars,
or use the tool Select → Color Range. Create an alpha channel and copy the selected dust
there. Bright areas in the alpha channel must outline the dust in the galaxy, so you may
need to invert the image.

There is no separate texture for dust, it must be contained in the alpha channel (transparency) of the image you're using.
What does "Add Alpha Channel" mean?

Ok, I do not know how to do that in GIMP.
Also a new galaxy I made just comes up as a large "bulge".

Ok, I do not know how to do that in GIMP.

Thant's why I linked some tutorials.

I looked at the channel and the videos don't look like they will help me, can you link me some of the videos related to my problem?

If the links I posted are not helping you, a search on Youtube for "GIMP alpha channel" it's the best suggestion I can offer you at this point. You need some experience with photo editing programs first, which is out of the scope of this thread.

I do understand why the moons of two of the Tau Ceti planets "err out" and show up in those warning messages. I know that I will have to correct their parent object name before they will appear correctly.... I corrected the names of all the planets, but missed those moons (haven't gotten to them yet because of this Terra Nova thing).

Is it possible those errors (from the moons) are messing with the proper loading of that file and the follow-ups, and thus giving me this erratic showing of my primary topic planet?

This morning all my planets were there, but now they are missing again. Again, I make no changes to anything between the two occurances.

thx,

Since errors like that tend to cause other cascade errors, it could be. Let's see what happens when we get rid of them.

I have re-edited the planets script for Tau Ceti, replacing all with unique planet and moon names.

At first I thought the fix might have worked, but I'm back to my original problem
.
They showed up once, but have since dissappeared again.

Neither the Tau Ceti system, my custom planets, or the star itself shows up anymore that I can find.

When I do a search by name, all their names show up in the pick boxes, but if I select one and hit
 Goto, it goes to empty space. If I do a name search for my custom planet, it replies object not found.

If I do a goto flagged location where the Tau Ceti star system used to be, it takes me to empty space.

All the errors for moon names in the startup log file have dissappeared (that I can tell), but the warning
 for TerraNova blah blah is back again. I am still using the same script file for that planet that I have
 been using for the past week, and that name IS in there....

WTF????

Here is my SE.log file


thx,

It's always nice to delete the cache when adding or modifying custom Planet scripts, each time you start the program.

Not that it works in your case exactly, but it did for me in similar situations many times.