Awesome FREE badass FREE neat FREE cool FREE astronomy program!

[Gomer]

Did I mention it is free?

Stargazing isn't a serious hobby of mine, but I often want to know what the hell I am looking at. I tried star charts, maps, and the like, but always found them to be lacking (or my attention span/desire to figure them out).

A quick google search a few weeks ago found this GEM!
Stellarium

I cannot believe that a FREE program like this exists. It is like having your own personal planetarium in your house.

FEATURES (per GOMER)
AMAZING graphics capabilities... pan, zoom move around seamlessly. Set your lat and long to your house, or anywhere in the world you want.

Identify any point of light in the sky with detailed astronomical data.

Zoom in on Jupiter (low on the SE horizon right now). As you zoom, Jupiter becomes a photorealistic image. As you zoom, notice the moons are in their actual, current locations (I can see them with my binocs). Zoom in on the moons, they are photorealistic as well.

Zoom in on galaxies... photorealistic.

Lunar eclipse scheduled? WATCH IT HAPPEN.

Set the time scale to any speed you want... forwards or backwards. Go to any point in history you want.

Want to learn the CONSTELLATIONS? View them in 3 different fashions including very seamless graphical illustrations. Or just look at the stick figures... or just look at the regions of the sky named for the constellations.

Final neat feature... So many stars/galaxies, how to learn/identify them all? Set the level in the program so that it only ID's items of a certain magnitude or brighter.

This is DEFINITELY my awesome FREE find of the year!

If anyone needs help figuring out a FEATURE... feel free to ask. I'll be glad to help if I can!

[surreal]

Thanks gomer, I'm downloading it now.. (dsl) :0

[ShyguyXPC]

LOL, I saw the thread title in the new postings list & thought to my self, OK ANOTHER SPAMMER?

then saw the thread starter, "oh, ok, its only Gomer"

yeah, this program has been out & for free for awhile, I haven't been into stargazing or any of that stuff since I was in my early/pre-teens, but I downloaded & installed this about a year or so back for my dad, who was still interested in the stuff, fixed up his telescope from 10-15 years ago, to show off to the grandkids... so downloaded it for him, but haven't used it much...

it is a pretty sweet program & for Free, I actually played around with it for a few hours that first day, was pretty sweet, LOL, better than some games actually

forgot to download this again when I got the other PC upgraded, downloading now

[DeathWish187]

LOL OK ANOTHER SPAMMER?

OH SHIT

[outlaw2001it]

Used to use Winstars years ago, I'll give this a try. Thanks for the link.

[vass0922]

how different is it from Google Sky ?

[Gomer]

how different is it from Google Sky ?

NIGHT and DAY.... HA!!!!

Google Sky... never saw it before... but it looks static. Right? STELLARIUM is dynamic. Look to the North in Stellarium, look to the North outside and you see the exact same thing... no matter what time it is. Pan around... zoom in, grab your binocs and zoom in outside, see the same thing. Want to know what the bright object to the SE is that wasn't there last week? Check Stellarium... it will practically tell you.

Google sky looks like a good collection of pretty pictures and information... but it seems useless for helping me figure out what I am looking at in the night sky..

Stellarium has a much nicer. smoother interface to it too!