Star Gazing has always been an authentic hobby of many people around the globe and it is indeed one of the oldest hobbies known to man. We all must love gazing stars at night, most of them don’t make it as their hobby, but many of us still try hard to look out for the constellation, or even spot out a planet or a galaxy, and for amateur’s like me it is even difficult to spot a planet in the night sky.
Well, now it’s not a major problem, great news for our linux users, there are several star gazing applications out there for download (open source softwares like Celestia & Kstar) but Stellarium has always been my favorite and I personally use it on my Ubuntu 11.04 code named “Natty Narwhal” and its working wonderful. Stellarium since being an Open source has always been free to download. It is available for Mac users, for Linux users and no doubt for Windows users too and can be downloaded at stellarium.org, you simply have to download, your O.S specific version, point out your coordinates and you are ready to setup your own planetarium at your home.
For Ubuntu (but also for other Linux distributions) the package it’s available in the official repository, so my suggestion it’s to use that package that can be installed through the software center or by opening a terminal on your Ubuntu and run the following command:
sudo aptitude install stellarium |
Now you don’t need to purchase a telescope neither you have to go to your roof to find the stars. Now you can freely convert your interest into your hobby without spending even a single dollar. Stellarium brings out a realistic 3Dimensional sky on your computer screen. It portrays a similar view which you would have experienced by your naked eye or by your telescope. According to their website it is also used in Planetarium Projectors.
The Latest version is 0.11.0
- It has a catalogue and has indexed more than 600.000 stars
- This version also has an additional catalogue which can help you view more than 210 million stars, now that is really Awesome!
- View your Constellations for 12 different cultures.
- Experience the high definition images of the Nebulae & Milky Way.
- The latest version of Stellarium shows you a more realistic view of the atmosphere, sunrise as well as sunset.
- It shows you planets and their respective satellites in more depth, with high power zoom capabilities.
For more of its advanced features download Stellarium on your own linux system and experience the Fascinating view of the Sky.
Popular Posts:
- None Found
Thank you Riccardo for this. I did not know abou it.
I love Stellarium, always install it and use it. I didn’t know about kstars though, so thanks for that!
[…] Stellarium: setting up your very own Planetarium at home. Star Gazing has always been an authentic hobby of many people around the globe and it is indeed one of the oldest hobbies known to man. We all must love gazing stars at night, most of them don’t make it as their hobby, but many of us still try hard to look out for the constellation, or even spot out a planet or a galaxy, and for amateur’s like me it is even difficult to spot a planet in the night sky. […]
Most amateur science related software programs have a tendency to overwhelm users with a large number of features and detail which may put-off a casual user. But, Stellarium is a great exception to this fact that makes it outstanding as compared to that of its contemporaries. Install Stellarium Planetarium softwrare : ubuntu 11.04