Stellarium

Stellarium: Explore and learn all about the universe from your computer by using this incredible and interactive 3D environment

Stellarium is an incredible utility that gives you the opportunity to explore planets, constellations, and other aspects of the universe anytime you want, day or night. The open source planetarium gives you all kinds of details about various celestial objects, has the ability to simulate solar and lunar eclipses, and a whole lot more.

Stellarium gives you all the information you’ve ever wanted about various aspects of the universe with just a few clicks of your mouse, which makes it absolutely perfect for school and home use by young and old alike.

Features:

- Provides you with an interactive 3D environment for all kinds of celestial exploration.
- Opens in full screen mode automatically so that you can easily avoid any distractions and focus solely on the vastness of the universe.
- Various details about objects, including type (star, double star, cluster, etc.), magnitude, galactic longitude and latitude, distance, angle, etc.
- Lets you configure your own telescope and choose where exactly you’d like to do your viewing from, giving you the opportunity to have a different experience virtually every time.
- Gives you the opportunity to go back in time and see what the constellations and skies used to look like (automatically generates projections based on a user-specified date and time).
- Show/Hide options that allow you to specify exactly what it is you want to see.
- Lets you set up keyboard shortcuts for even easier navigation.
- Gives you the opportunity to further advance you experience with optional plugins if you’d like.

Requirements:

- A 3D openGL acceleration card and a good CPU.