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Stellarium
Hi All
As a new member I mentioned I was playing around with the planetarium program Stellarium. It is a free program being developed contiuously and has now reached a very usable stage. Version 8.2 is now available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
It is principally designed as a planetarium display and used in computer based planetariums but it has now reached the stage where it can control a telescope and give a view just like what can be seen through the eyepiece. One of its shortcomings was the lack of stars but that will all change in version 9 to be released soon. Version 9 will display 9 star catalogues (if you have enough room to store them). The first 5 contain 9 million + stars.
I have been compiling the development version under Linux and it is simply fabulous. It is the first planetarium program that I have found that will display the trapezium! The ability to add landscape for horizons adds to the realism and digital photos can be superimposed over the stars in their FOV to an accuracy of arcseconds. This effect can be simply awsome.
Another interesting facility is being able to view the solar system from any of the objects defined in the ssystem.ini file. Looking at Mars as viewed from its satellites is interesting.
Truly a great program.
Barry
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