Stellarium: A free open-source planetarium for your computer, Hacker News

    

features

    Sky    

• default catalog of over 600, 000 stars

      

• extra catalogs with more than 177 million stars

      

• default catalog of over 80, 000 deep-sky objects

      

• extra catalog with more than 1 million deep-sky objects

      

• asterisms and illustrations of the constellations

      

• constellations for 20 different cultures

      

• images of nebulae (full Messier catalog)

      Realistic Milky Way      

• very realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset

      

• the planets and their satellites

    

interface

    

• a powerful zoom

      

• Time control

      

• multilingual interface

      fisheye projection for planetarium domes      spheric mirror projection for your own low-cost dome      

• all new graphical interface and extensive keyboard control

      

• telescope control

    

visualization

    

• equatorial and azimuthal grids

      star twinkling      shooting stars      

• tails of comets

      

• iridium flares simulation

      

• eclipse simulation

      supernovae and novae simulation      3D Sceneries      skinnable landscapes, now with spheric panorama projection    

customizability

    

• plugin system adding artifical satellites, ocular simulation, telescope configuration and more

      

• ability to add new solar system objects from online resources …

      

• add your own deep sky objects, landscapes, constellation images, scripts …