DISTANT SUNS
Distant Suns brings the power of a million dollar
planetarium to your desktop. Containing a database of over
16 million stars, you will be able to peer deep into the
universe, even beyond that a large telescope. You will be
able to explore the planets from any angle...ever wanted to
see what the back of Saturn looks like? Or the Jovian moon
Io during eclipse? Or what the phase of the Moon was on your
birthday? Now you can!
HNSKY
Free planetarium program HNSKY for Windows. It is
complete with the SAO, PPM, Tycho-2 star databases, up to
date deepsky database containing 26000 objects , Realsky (r)
images and access to the external GSC and USNO CDROM star
catalogs. Telescope control using the universal ASCOM
package, a Realsky viewer (incl. source) DDE controlled from
HNSKY and a BMP/JPEG to FITS conversion utility.
STARFINDER
StarFinder is a small, FREE, planisphere program (Windows
9X/ME/NT/2000) for the beginning stargazer. It displays a
whole-sky map of the stars, planets, Moon, Sun, and some
deep sky objects for any date/time and lattitude. Explore
how the sky changes from hour-to-hour or month-to-month.
Looking for a constellation? Select it from a pop-up menu of
all the constellations and adjust the time (and possibly
latitude) of the map until the constellation's outline shows
up.
SKY CHARTS (CARTES DU CIEL)
STELLARIUM
Stellarium renders 3D photo-realistic skies in real time.
With stellarium, you really see what you can see with your
eyes, binoculars or a small telescope. (5.9MB)
(Note
this site has been off air for sometime, but web address
remains active)
STARFINDER
StarFinder is a small planisphere program for the
beginning stargazer. It displays a whole-sky map of the
stars, planets, Moon, Sun, and some deep sky objects for any
date/time and latitude. Explore how the sky changes from
hour-to-hour or month-to-month. (220KB)
SKYORB
SkyORB'03 computes sun, moon and majors planets and
theirs majors satellites rise and set times, positions from
any place in the world, and from any planet (like Mars),
renders local sky using HYG Database in real time and
constellation charts and stars names, nebulas, comets and
asteroids from IAU Minor Planet Centre database. Very fast,
you can change view direction in real-time even with 30,000
stars rendered at once. A 3D real-time rendering view from
space with the majors planets. Solar/lunar eclipses,
solstices and equinoxes days can be computed, and a sun
clock is also available. A large database, user editable in
XML format, of one thousand of places on Earth, Moon and
Mars. For example, see the sky above the Spirit and
Opportunity rovers. (5.5MB)
SOLEX
SOLEX is a computer program modelling the N-body dynamics
of the Solar System. Its hearth is a powerful numerical
integrator, and the many additional functions make it a
greatly flexible program, which at the same time is very
simple to use and very powerful in its performances. It can
just give aesthetic pleasure and help in identifying sky
objects, or it can be used by an experienced researcher as a
tool to investigate aspects of the solar system dynamics
such impact probabilities and chaotic motion. This is a DOS
program. (2.9MB)
NIGHT VISION
Night Vision is a "planetarium" program for Java and will
display the heavens from any location on earth. Viewing
options allow the user to control which sky objects to
display, which font to use, and manipulation of various star
parameters. (611KB)
STARMAPSTUDIO
Star Map Studio is a program for generating and printing
maps of the sky. (2.7MB)
STARMAP
A very basic star charting program. Several downloads
needed.
THE ELECTRIC ASTROLABE
The Electric Astrolabe is a fully animated planetarium
program in the form of a planispheric astrolabe. The
singular advantage of the astrolabe display is that it shows
the entire sky, both visible and invisible, on a single
screen. The Electric Astrolabe can be set for any location
and includes accurate positions of the Sun, Moon, and
planets. (477KB)
C2A
C2A (Computer Aided Astronomy) is a Planetarium software
that allows you to build detailed views of stellar fields.
An important objective of this software is to take into
account the main catalogues available to professional and
amateur astronomers in order to prepare observations on
small fields as well as astrometry works. (8.6MB)
STARCHARTGL
OpenGL star chart / planetarium with very realistic
graphics. 110,000 stars. All messier objects. All the major
planets and visible moons. Animate the passing of night and
day or Follow a planet, star or messier object's path over a
few minutes to a few centuries. Realistic night and day
colours. Free for non-commercial use. (3.3MB)
STARCAT
Starcat is a viewer for the Bright Star, Hipparcos and
Tycho star catalogues. The default catalogue is the Bright
Star Catalogue with over 9000 stars. The Hipparcos catalogue
contains over 100,000 stars (above) and the Tycho catalogue
over 1,000,000 stars. StarCats is a visualization tool for
these catalogues which also gives direct access to the
catalogue record data for any star by pointing and clicking.
(396KB)
ASYNX PLANETARIUM
Shows the brightest stars, planets and moon. (500KB)
SOLAR SYSTEM 3D SIMULATOR
Solar System 3D Simulator generates a realistic solar
system model and planets in 3 Dimensions on the PC using
advanced physics formulas. It can display the planets and
their orbits, the sun and the moon. The nine planets
including planet earth and their detailed physical &
chemical information and image pictures is also displayed
including solar power, solar energy and solar eclipse
details. The graphical output is in high-resolution 3D full
colour format and the orbit view can be adjusted and the
orbits tilted & rotated to any angle. (5MB)
CELESTIAL MAPS
Astronomical software that produces accurate maps of the
sky in five types of projections. Other catalogues to expand
the program can be found at the home page. (950KB)
