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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

Play Video The dance of the planets above Hurricane Ridge. Selecting observer location Fisheye view of the sky, with constellation art displayed. Stars, nebulae, the equatorial grid The light polution simulation (composite image) Zoom in on Saturn and its moons.

Project Activity

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Categories

Simulation Games, Astronomy, Education

License

GNU General Public License version 2.0 (GPLv2)

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Stellarium Web Site

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User Ratings

4.8 out of 5 stars
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ease 1 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 5 of 5 4 / 5
features 1 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 5 of 5 4 / 5
design 1 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 5 of 5 4 / 5
support 1 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 5 of 5 4 / 5

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Additional Project Details

Awards

Operating Systems

BSD, Linux, Mac, Windows

Languages

Albanian, Arabic, Basque (Euskara), Belarusian, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish Gaelic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

Intended Audience

Education, End Users/Desktop, Science/Research

User Interface

OpenGL, Qt, Win32 (MS Windows), X Window System (X11)

Programming Language

C, C++, GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language)

Related Categories

C++ Simulation Games, C++ Astronomy Software, C++ Education Software, C Simulation Games, C Astronomy Software, C Education Software, GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Simulation Games, GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Astronomy Software, GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Education Software

Registered

2002-03-13
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