''Cartes du Ciel'' ("CDC" and "SkyChart") is a

free and open source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

planetarium program for

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. With the change to version 3, Linux has been added as a target platform,

licensing A license (American English) or licence ( Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another par ...

has changed from

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

GPLv2 The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or copyleft, ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was th ...

and the project moved to a new website. CDC includes the ability to control computerized GoTo telescope mounts, is ASCOM and

INDI Indi may refer to: *Mag-indi language *Division of Indi, an electoral division in the Australian House of Representatives * Indi, Karnataka, a town in the state of Karnataka, India * Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface, a distributed control s ...

compliant, and supports the

USNO The United States Naval Observatory (USNO) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning, navigation and timekeeping data for the United States Navy and the United States Department of Defense. Established in 1830 as the ...

's UCAC catalogs and

ESA The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 in the context of European ...

Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; , a poetic form of ('), meaning 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea (), is the personification of Earth. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life. She is the mother of Uranus (S ...

data, along with numerous other catalogs and utilities. The "red bulb" feature is useful when using software outside on a laptop on a dark night. According to the programmer, Patrick Chevalley, it was released as freeware because "I’d rather see amateurs spend their money for a new eyepiece than for astronomy software". Chevalley has also created a lunar atlas program, ''Virtual Moon Atlas'', which is also

free and open source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

References

* * *

External links

Version 2
(archived)
Version 4
Free astronomy software Free software programmed in Pascal Planetarium software for Linux Educational software for macOS Educational software for Windows Science software for macOS Science software for Windows Formerly proprietary software Pascal (programming language) software {{Linux-stub

See also

References

External links