One of the things that has changed the most for star lovers in these last years is the sheer availability of software that allows you to explore the universe and learn its fantastic features. Some even come in modular forms, that integrate fantastic imagery from NASA and other public repositories. Being myself a committed user of a few of them, I thought it was a good idea to share some views about my favourites, and offer some suggestions for perspective stargazers.
Disclaimer 1: this is not intended to be a complete list. I am only talking about the ones I have tried and used with some regularity. If some good ones of your knowledge are not here it only means one thing: I don’t know them, and, as a rule, I don’t talk about anything I have no experience of (and by all means, please do share your experiences in the comment area.)
Disclaimer 2: these are full-fledged software, not apps for your Ipad/Android. I will probably write another post about them, because it is a complete different world…
And now, voila’ my magnificent three (all resident on my Mac at the time of writing this post):
1. Stellarium
First of all, let’s start with one that (almost) everybody knows about, Stellarium. This is an amazing software, for more than one reason. First of all, it’s an open source, i.e. it’s almost available on any platform you can think of, including Windows, Mac and Linux. Second, it’s free. Third, it’s a complete and well structured software full of add-ons and that shows a realistic sky in 3D from your own location: just input your coordinates. With Stellarium you get everything, planets, moons, stars (up to 210 million if you load up the extra-catalogues), galaxies and nebulas… Also, and this is a sort of unique bonus, it’s one of the few that shows constellation groupings for other cultures.
Downsides: it can be, like all open-sources, complex to use at its full potential. Asteroids and comets are the weakest spot in terms of available data.
Repositories and add-ons at the homepage.
2. Starry Night
Another classic, Starry Night is a complete software that does… quite the same things of Stellarium, with a couple of important differences. One, it is a paying platform coming in a series of formats, from beginners to enthusiasts with different levels of expertise to pro, with an increasingly arrays of available features. The good thing about it is that it keeps complexity manageable if you are a neofite, and with the spaceship function you can enjoy nice zooms to a planet or a moon without the need of doing anything else. Plenty of tutorials and didactic features make it the most user-friendly software I have found so far. But its version pro is incredibly sophisticated. For some web simulations, see this. More information and purchase options here.
A screenshot of my Starry Night just taken now:
3. Celestia
This is somehow different, a space travel simulator. With that you can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy, and the images are pretty cool. Since it is not strictly a planetarium, however, it does not display constellations and there’s no telescope controls like in the other two, meaning that you haven’t a way to point to a specific location (useful instead if you’re using the software for learning your way out there). Said that, it’s a free, open source platform, with plenty of add-ons, and all good things about that. Download it here.
…. and two outsiders, web-based viewers that, while not as good as the previous ones (for obvious reasons), give you a quick-and-easy views of some of the cool objects on our sky:
4. Sky Map
Sky-map.org is as good as a online system can be, and presents a detailed sky map. It actually generates the map automatically using its database with the positions and basic characteristics of space objects, and also allows for getting real high-res photo of the sky, taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). It is great, actually. The only limitation? For the moment, it only provides the map of the space objects located outside of our Solar System (but this might change in the future).
You can check it out the Sky Map viewer here.
5. Google Earth Sky Simulator.
And naturally enough there’s a Google Earth Sky Simulator to check out planets and deep-space objects. Watch astronaut Sally Ride using it on this video:
Can’t be easier than that, can it? Finally, for some professional reviews about them, look at these good links (one) and (two).
Happy Stargazing!