stellarium.org - A planetarium at your fingertips

Stargazers need not wait for a clear sky any longer. Stellarium is bringing the Universe to the computer screen. By downloading the Stellarium files, users can plug in their coordinates and fly into the galaxy. The view is incredibly realistic (3D) and exactly like what stargazers see with their eyes and viewing instruments. Stellarium has an impressive list of its capabilities broken down into four categories: sky, interface, visualization and customizability. A few shining examples are a default catalogue of over 600,000 stars, extra catalogues with over 210 million stars, realistic sunrise and sunset, a powerful zoom, projections options (used in many planetariums), stars twinkling, equatorial and azimuthal grids, and custom features that will drop jaws. Stellarium invites users to check out and contribute to the wiki with information about the program, and also with Sourceforge which is the main site for collaboration on Stellarium. Fly into the sky with Stellarium, but be careful- you might not make it back. Before you go make sure to support the site by donating through pay pall.

"The Stellarium team is proud to announce the release version 0.9.0 of Stellarium, the open source planetarium for your computer. Stellarium shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like you would see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. Just set your coordinates and go."

This is the start of society having a better understanding of what exists and sustains us in space. An excellent learning tool and an eye-opener for everyone.

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