Stellarium. Installez un magnifique planetarium dans votre ordinateur
Gaining height in these troubled times is undeniably good. With the Stellarium software , you will be invited to raise your head and look at the sky to discover the millions of stars there.
Stellarium is a beautiful planetarium that will display the sky above your head photorealistically and in real time. A real marvel , which to top it off, is free software under the GNU GPL license. It is available for GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. Your students will love it and you will too.
A complete planetarium to discover the sky with its constellations and stars
Open Source software, Stellarium is very rich. It allows you to display a realistic sky in 3D, as if you were looking at it with the naked eye, binoculars or with a telescope. The basic idea is to provide a map of the sky from a given position in real time.
This planetarium software is stunning. Once you have mastered its basic functions, you can really use it to identify points in the sky above your head. With one click, you will see the identity card of a star or a planet displayed directly from Wikipedia.
You quickly get used to the software controls. When launched, you must first define your location. The default location is Paris, a search by IP attempts to guess your approximate location. But, the best is still to click on your location on the map in the location window, or enter the coordinates manually.
From there, the sky will look exactly like the one above your head. If you take Stellarium on a trip with a laptop, you will of course need to adjust your location (or enable search by IP).
Then everything is done on the keyboard. Use mouse or arrow keys to look around. Use the page up and page down keys to zoom in and out. Have a good trip.
A tool to discover the space that adapts to all audiences
This is one of the strengths of Stellarium, it can be used by all audiences. The planetarium will appeal to beginners as well as experts, the curious and knowledgeable amateurs, students and researchers. The functions and data offered are extremely rich.
The basic catalog contains 600,000 stars, but if that's not enough for you, you can download additional catalogs with more than 177 million stars! Stellarium also includes images of the planets, satellites and asteroids of the solar system, images of several nebulae and artistic representations of the constellations. The software also offers plugins to enrich it even more. You can also record your observations. Share them. Dizzy.
A planetarium for your computer, with software, website and mobile apps
Stellarium has just released a version 1.0 completely free and available for download for all types of computers and operating systems. You can also consult a web version of Stellarium via a simple browser. Everything is free and without any advertising. Consider donating to the developer team, they deserve it.
Stellarium is also available in the form of a dedicated mobile application for iOS and Android . The user experience is even more amazing. Just point your phone or tablet to the sky to discover planets, stars and constellations. Have a good trip to the stars.