Astronomy Software packages

Here is a list of the software packages I recommend to people. They cover the basics all the way up to advanced astronomy and a few others for good measure. All run on Linux, Mac and Windows and all are free!

  • Stellarium

    Stellarium is a planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. Just set your coordinates and go.

  • Celestia

    A space simulation program that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions.

  • Cartes du Ceil

    This program enables you to draw sky charts, making use of the data in 16 catalogues of stars and nebulae. In addition the position of planets, asteroids and comets are shown. The purpose of this program is to prepare different sky maps for a particular observation. A large number of parameters help you to choose specifically or automatically which catalogues to use, the colour and the dimension of stars and nebulae, the representation of planets, the display of labels and coordinate grids, the superposition of pictures, the condition of visibility and more. All these features make this celestial atlas more complete than a conventional planetarium.

Podcasts - Astronomical and Scientific

I subscribe to all of the following and can highly recommend each. They will give you up to date news about astronomy and science in general.