Stellarium is a

free and open-source 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 ...

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 planetariums is ...

, licensed under the terms of the

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

version 2 or any later version, available 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 ...

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 ...

, and

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 ...

. A port of Stellarium called Stellarium Mobile is available for Android and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

. These have a limited functionality, lacking some features of the desktop version. All versions use

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

to render a realistic projection of the

night sky The night sky is the nighttime appearance of celestial objects like stars, planets, and the Moon, which are visible in a clear sky between sunset and sunrise, when the Sun is below the horizon. Natural light sources in a night sky include moonlig ...

in real time. Stellarium was featured on

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...

in May 2006 as ''Project of the Month''.

History

In 2006, Stellarium 0.7.1 won a gold award in the Education category of the Les Trophées du Libre

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

competition. A modified version of Stellarium has been used by the

MeerKAT The meerkat (''Suricata suricatta'') or suricate is a small mongoose found in southern Africa. It is characterised by a broad head, large eyes, a pointed snout, long legs, a thin tapering tail, and a brindled coat pattern. The head-and-body ...

project as a virtual sky display showing where the antennae of the

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...

are pointed. In December 2011, Stellarium was added as one of the "featured applications" in the

Ubuntu Software Center Ubuntu Software Center, or simply Software Center, is a discontinued high-level graphical front end for the APT/dpkg package management system. It is free software written in Python, PyGTK/PyGObject based on GTK. The program was created for ...

Planetarium dome projection

The fisheye and spherical mirror distortion features allow Stellarium to be projected onto domes. Spherical mirror distortion is used in projection systems that use a digital

video projector A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image onto a projection screen using a lens system. Video projectors use a very bright ultra-high-performance lamp (a special mercury arc l ...

and a first surface convex spherical mirror to project images onto a

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

. Such systems are generally cheaper than traditional

planetarium projector A planetarium projector, also known as a star projector, is a device used to project images of celestial objects onto the dome in a planetarium. Modern planetarium projectors were first designed and built by the Carl Zeiss AG, Carl Zeiss Jena co ...

s and fish-eye lens projectors and for that reason are used in budget and home planetarium setups where projection quality is less important. Various companies which build and sell digital planetarium systems use Stellarium, such as ''e-Planetarium''. ''Digitalis Education Solutions'', which helped develop Stellarium, created a fork called

Nightshade Solanaceae (), commonly known as the nightshades, is a family of flowering plants in the order Solanales. It contains approximately 2,700 species, several of which are used as agricultural crops, medicinal plants, and ornamental plants. Many me ...

which was specifically tailored to planetarium use.

VirGO

VirGO is a Stellarium plugin, a visual browser for the

European Southern Observatory The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 m ...

(ESO) Science Archive Facility which allows astronomers to browse professional astronomical data. It is no longer supported or maintained; the last version was 1.4.5, dated January 15, 2010.

Stellarium Mobile

Stellarium Mobile is a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

of Stellarium, developed by some of the Stellarium team members. It currently targets mobile devices running

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...

Maemo Maemo is a Linux-based software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the Free software movement, community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and Software development ...

, Android, and

. Some of the mobile optimisations have been integrated into the mainline Stellarium product.

Screenshots

File:Stellarium 001.jpg, Constellation art in version 0.6.2 File:Stellarium 0.10.1 - Constellation art - English.png, Constellation art in version 0.10.1 File:Stellarium Mars.png, Mars and its moons in Stellarium 0.14 File:Stellarium Grid.png, Equatorial and Azimuthal Grids in Stellarium 0.14 File:Stellarium Night Mode.png, Screenshot of Night Mode in Stellarium 0.14

Legacy

Eleanor Catton Eleanor Catton (born 1985) is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of M ...

, the

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

author who wrote the 2013 Booker Prize recipient novel '' The Luminaries,'' stated she used star charts from Stellarium and ''

Sky & Telescope ''Sky & Telescope'' (''S&T'') is a monthly magazine covering all aspects of amateur and professional astronomy, including what to see in the sky tonight and new findings in astronomy. Other topics covered include: *observing guides for planets, ...

'' while writing the novel to help reconstruct the sky within the timeframe the novel is set in.

References

External links

*
Stellarium Web Online Planetarium
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stellarium (Software) 2001 software Cross-platform software Free astronomy software Free educational software Free software programmed in C++ Planetarium software for Linux Portable software Science software for macOS Science software for Windows Software that uses Qt