Stellarium is a free and open source planetarium simulation that you can use to see stars, moon, planets, nebula and many sky things in detailed, realistic and real time right on your computer. What you will see in Stellarium is exactly the same with what is in the sky even more clear. Stellarium is a great way to learn about sky and space as well as to get fun as it is also being applied in planetarium projectors.
Stellarium features catalogue of more than 200 million stars with many constellation illustrations, images of nebula, and atmospheres. The interface is very easy to navigate. Just use arrow buttons and mouse, you can fly around the sky and take more information on every space objects. Realistic simulation is the most important feature in Stellarium.
How to start using Stellarium
- Adjust the timezone, date, and time on your computer. Use control panel to change them in Windows platform. Stellarium uses them to simulate sky at your place.
- Set your location. Press F6 to show the Location dialog box. Select your city and country. Mark the "Use current location as default" option to always see the sky above your home whenever you open Stellarium.
- Use arrow buttons and mouse to see around the sky.
- Left-click a star, planet, nebula, or other space object to select. Press spacebar to position the selected object to the center of screen. And use PageUp and PageDown to zoom in and out.
- Press C to show/hide constellation lines. Press V to show/hide constellation labels. and Press R to show/hide constellation arts.
- Press F5 to change the date and time. And press F3 to search an object.
- The user guide for Stellarium is available on here.