Stellarium is a free, open-source planetarium software for your computer. This powerful application provides a realistic 3D simulation of the night sky, resembling what can be observed with the naked eye, binoculars, or telescopes. It’s commonly utilized in planetarium projectors—simply input your geographic coordinates and explore the cosmos.
Key Features of Stellarium:
- Realistic sky simulation, including sunrise and sunset
- Comes with a default catalog of over 600,000 stars
- Options to download additional catalogs featuring up to 210 million stars
- Comprehensive cataloging of all New General Catalogue (NGC) objects
- Images of nearly all Messier objects alongside depictions of the Milky Way
- Artistic representation of all 88 contemporary constellations
- Insights into various cultures and their associated constellations
- Simulations for solar and lunar eclipses
- Photorealistic landscapes (further options available on the official website)
- Script support using ECMAScript with included demo scripts
- Extendable functionality through plug-ins, with 8 pre-installed, including:
- Artificial Satellites plug-in (updated using an online TLE database)
- Ocular Simulation plug-in (demonstrates how celestial objects appear in specific ocular settings)
- Solar System Editor plug-in (imports data on comets and asteroids from the MPC)
- Telescope Control plug-in (compatible with Meade LX200 and Celestron NexStar telescopes)
Major Changes in This Version:
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Enhanced performance for computing positions of Solar System bodies
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Improvements made to plugins and AstroCalc tools
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Updated sky culture information
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Refined Graphical User Interface (GUI)
- Numerous minor fixes were addressed behind the scenes; see the full release notes.
Download: Stellarium 24.3 (64-bit) | 392.0 MB (Open Source)
Visit: Stellarium Home Page | Other Operating Systems
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