Browse Code
Stellarium renders 3D photo-realistic skies in real time with OpenGL. It displays stars, constellations, planets, nebulae and others things like ground, landscape, atmosphere, etc.
Features
- Realistic simulation of the sky, sunrise and sunset
- Default catalogue of over 600,000 stars
- Downloadable additional catalogues for up to 210 million stars
- Catalog data for all New General Catalogue (NGC) objects
- Images of almost all Messier objects and the Milky Way
- Artistic illustrations for all 88 modern constellations
- More than a dozen different cultures with their constellations
- Solar and lunar eclipse simulation
- Photorealistic landscapes (more are available on the website)
- Scripting support with ECMAScript (a few demo scripts are included)
- Extendable with plug-ins: 21 plug-ins installed by default, including:
- artificial satellites plug-in (updated from an on-line TLE database)
- ocular simulation plug-in (shows how objects look like in a given ocular)
- Solar System editor plug-in (imports comet and asteroid data from the MPC)
- telescope control plug-in (Meade LX200 and Celestron NexStar compatible)
- Remote control via web interface plug-in
- 3D landscapes plug-in
Project Samples
License
GNU General Public License version 2.0 (GPLv2)Other Useful Business Software
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User Reviews
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I’ve been using Stellarium to explore the night sky and plan stargazing sessions, and it’s been a joy. The visuals are beautiful and surprisingly realistic — it feels like looking through a telescope, only you can rewind or fast-forward time to see how the sky changes. I love how you can click on stars, planets, and constellations to learn more about them, and the constellation art makes it fun for kids and adults alike. It’s very accessible for beginners — you don’t need to know much about astronomy to start using it. That said, if you’re a more advanced amateur astronomer or hobbyist with specialized gear, Stellarium doesn’t replace dedicated astrophotography or telescope-control apps. And if you crank up the graphics on an older laptop, it can lag a bit. Overall, it’s a fantastic, free tool for getting into astronomy and visualizing the night sky — hence a 4-star rating.
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Been using Stellarium for years now and it's really amazing for studying the stars. Also, if you're in the mood for stargazing but it's cloudy outside, then it's a not too bad substitute.
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Stellarium is a classic, standard de facto, virtual planetarium program for PC.
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The best astronomy Sky Map ever made ! I have many commercial softwares, but Stellarium is one, if not the best of them. So many things it has that it´s impossible to list here. You´d better give it a try, but I know you already have. Great !
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No help menu. Pretty useless for beginners. If you are new to astronomy, like me, you need to look for something more basic - like I will now. Still, only £2.99 wasted. Could be worse.
