Stellarium** is a free open source planetarium program for your computer.** It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.
If you're at all into telescopes or the night sky, this one's for you.
in version 0.8.0:
sky
over 120,000 stars from the Hipparcos catalogue with info
asterisms and illustrations of the constellations
images of nebulae
realistic Milky Way
very realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset
- the planets and their satellites
interface
a powerful zoom
time control
multilingual interface
scripting to record and play your own shows
fisheye projection for planetarium domes
spheric mirror projection for your own dome
- graphical interface and extensive keyboard control
visualisation
equatorial and azimuthal grids
star twinkling
shooting stars
eclipse simulation
- skinnable landscapes, now with spheric panorama projection
customisability
- add your own deep sky objects, landscapes, constellation images, scripts...
Click the image to view a full size screenshot:
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