Nightshade is a simulation and visualization software for teaching and exploring astronomy, Earth science, and related topics. Its focus is on use in digital planetarium systems or as an educational tool, with additional features to allow it to also be used on desktop or laptop computers. It operates on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

. Nightshade Legacy was

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

and is no longer developed. A completely new codebase, Nightshade NG (Next Generation) is licensed under the "Nightshade Public License", a non-free license with field of use restrictions but with source available.

History

Nightshade Legacy began as a fork of

Stellarium A stellarium is a three-dimensional map of the stars, typically centered on Earth. They are common fixtures at planetarium A planetarium ( planetariums or ''planetaria'') is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entert ...

by Digitalis Education Solutions after controversy between the Stellarium project and its commercial contributor about a focus on desktop versus planetarium use. Development of Nightshade Legacy ceased around 2011. A rewrite, Nightshade NG, was begun in 2011, with a change to a non-free license with field of use restrictions to prevent its use by commercial competitors of Digitalis. Several Nightshade NG "preview releases" have been made.

Features of Nightshade NG

* Sky features ** The Hipparcos Catalogue with proper 3D positioning, proper motion and radial velocity ** Extra catalogues with more than 12 million stars ** Asterisms and illustrations of the constellations from many cultures ** Images of nebulae (built-in and user added) ** Realistic

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked ey ...

** Physically-based atmosphere allowing for realistic sunrise and sunset from anywhere on or above the Earth or

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

Planet A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a ...

s of the

Solar System The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

and their major

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

s ** Ability to display stars and other celestial objects as seen from any reference point in the

galaxy ** Ability to fast-forward or rewind time +/- 1,000,000 years * Terrain features ** Ability to add multiple image layers of a planet using Web Map Service or GDAL ** Ability to display imagery over topography ** Ultra-high resolution imagery for Earth, Mars, Mercury, Europa, and the Moon * Interface ** Zoom ** Time control ** Multilingual interface ** Scripting to record and playback shows ** Fisheye projection for

planetarium A planetarium ( planetariums or ''planetaria'') is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetarium ...

domes ** Graphical interface and extensive keyboard control ** Text user interface for planetarium domes ** Web-based graphical console for control from any

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

or Mobile

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

device * Visualization ** Equatorial, azimuthal, J2000, and galactic grids ** Star twinkling ** Shooting stars ** Eclipse simulation for any body ** Skinnable landscapes ** Spherical panorama projection * Customisability ** Deep sky objects, landscapes, constellation images, scripts etc. can be added. ** Stratoscript command syntax to allow for easy

macro Macro (or MACRO) may refer to: Science and technology * Macroscopic, subjects visible to the eye * Macro photography, a type of close-up photography * Image macro, a picture with text superimposed * Monopole, Astrophysics and Cosmic Ray Observat ...

-style programming ** Ability to record and playback scripts

References

External links

*{{Openhub, id=nightshade-simulator, name=Nightshade Astronomy Simulator Planetarium software for Linux Educational software for Windows Educational software for macOS Science software for macOS Science software for Windows