Stellarium

Stellarium by Open Source

  • Editor's Rating: 5 stars
  • User Rating: 5 (8)
  • Price:Free

planetarium software Stellarium is a planetarium software that shows a realistic 3D simulation of the night sky on your computer screen. It includes a default catalog with more than 600,000 stars, images of nebulae, a realistic Milky Way, as well as planets and their satellites (additional catalogs are available for download). You can click on each object to view the name, distance and other details and also zoom in for a closer look. The program can show the sky based on your current geographical location or any other place on earth. It also allows you to simulate movements by going back and forth in time at different speeds. Other features include very realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset simulations, star twinkling effects ans shooting stars, skinnable landscapes, constellations for eleven different cultures, night vision mode and more.

Product Details

Publisher Open Source Popularity 99
Price Free O/S 2000/XP/Vista/7
Version 0.11.4 ...history Requirements None
Last updated Aug 27, 2012 File Size 57931 Kb

User Reviews

5 stars62% 5
4 stars25% 2
3 stars12% 1
2 stars0% 0
1 star0% 0
Based on 8 reviews

Latest user reviews:

Good software, does its job well, used a lot! 3 stars by Tristan Jun 15, 2012 (Read all my 5 reviews)
You can't beat the value of Stellarium. Stellarium is short and sweet, to the point, just the way I like an application. It's rather short of features, compared with commercial programs like Starry Night Pro. There are a lot of times when you don't want to wait for Starry Night Pro and all it's features to load just to discover where a particular planet is located. What it does do, it does relatively well. Stellarium can be extended with plugins, and comes with several out of the starting gate. I use the angle tool, computerized telescope support, and ocular extensively. The computerized telescope support is lacking. It doesn't support ASCOM for total observatory integration, but it does support a number of telescopes, including CelestronSky-Watcher and Meade. The lack of a mouse interface to send slew commands to the telescope means you have to use the keyboard's hotkeys (CTRL-1 slews Telescope #1 to the currently selected point). Without a suitable mouse interface for this feature, it breaks workflow for many people (although hotkeys are faster in the long run). Still, you can't beat free, and overall this is one of my favorite astronomy programs. I use it every day to educate people. showShow review details
Not bad but there is better 4 stars by gimpguy Apr 14, 2011 (Read all my 948 reviews)
Stellarium has always been one of the better planetarium softwares and I don't dispute that which is why I gave it another go to see the changes. The interface is alright, sort of quirky trying to maneuver around and I wasn't that impressed with the view ports. The graphics are still decent. When I typed in where I live, it would stick me on Saturn, heh. All in all, it's a great planetarium although I still favor Winstars, which to me, still has a better, smoother interface. Stellarium didn't sway or wow me again, so maybe, next time? I still recommend this, just not as much as I would like to. showShow review details
A must have 5 stars by dee2too Apr 14, 2011
It is always installed on any computer that I have. showShow review details
Read all 8 user reviews...
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