Conclusion and download linkĪside from the learning curve and some minor quirks, Stellarium is an excellent app. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, open source is the way to go. It’s run by an incredibly passionate team of astronomers, all volunteers working in their free time. Stellarium is phenomenal, even more so considering it’s free. If you ever get lost, want to know how to do something, or need help you can always head to the home page- there’s obviously no shortage of useful information. Luckily, there’s a remarkable collection of valuable resources on the Stellarium page. There are a ton of different settings and options to tweak all of which can adjust your viewing experience in different ways. Getting used to the app will take some time, quite a bit actually. It has a steep learning curve, meaning you probably won’t have any clue what you’re doing when you first load it up. There’s one significant issue with Stellarium, which can be fixed over time. If you want to find a particular object, you can just use the search tool to locate it. You can slow down or speed up time and watch the sky while it passes. If you happen to select an object by accident, you can deselect it with the right mouse button. It’s downright invigorating to zoom in on various nebulae and planets.įurthermore, you can select objects with the left mouse button and center on them with the middle mouse button (hopefully you have one). The page up and page down keys will zoom in and out respectively. You can use the mouse or arrow keys to move the view around, and there are virtually no restrictions in terms of movement. Take note that this menu is where you can enter the longitude and latitude I talked about earlier. If you move the mouse pointer to the bottom left corner of the screen, an options menu will appear. Don’t be alarmed, Stellarium makes use of a fairly minimal user interface. The first thing you’ll see is a ground level representation of your current location. If you run into any problems, I suggest looking up your longitude and latitude on Google Maps and then entering them into Stellarium. Unfortunately, it’s not always accurate at pinpointing your location. It can be a little slow upon startup, but patience sees you through. While using the app, I actually felt like a child again, staring up in the wide open sky.Īfter installing and starting up Stellarium, the app will attempt to determine your current location. It’s a digital planetarium that allows you to look at almost anything in outer space. Perhaps the coolest feature is the eclipse simulation, one that you can look directly at, unlike a real eclipse. There’s a lot more to browse also, like constellations in twelve different cultures, time control modes, nebulae images, planet and moon images and more. There are also more catalogs to download that provide an additional 210 million stars. Stellarium features a map populated with more than 600,000 stars in total. Requires a graphics card that supports OpenGL 2.1 or greater.There’s a steep learning curve to use Stellarium.Works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and has Android app. You can locate particular objects with a search feature.Incredibly minimal and attractive user interface.Plenty of resources and helpful information about the software.
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