Aylesbury Astronomical Society
Registered Charity Number 276313
Site Updated: 07 February 2012 @ 13:46:58
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Stellarium
There are many commercial astronomy programs in the marketplace but when starting out with “armchair astronomy” one does want to outlay hard earned cash only to find it’s not for you, well Stellarium won’t hit your wallet in any way – it’s free – and it is as useful and comprehensive as many of it’s commercial rivals. It will run on Macs and PC’s running Linux or Windows, and there is a version for the iPhone but I’ll mention that later, so if you are interested please read on
I shall assume that you are running a PC with Windows, the process for Mac’s are similar and if you are running Linux you will know what to do anyway – it’s a geek thing :-)
Downloading and Installing,
- Open http://www.stellarium.org/ and you will see,
- Click on the Windows download icon, and the download process will begin. You will be asked to Save or Run this program. Select Run and it will install when the download is finished
- If all has gone well, and I shall assume a little knowledge of installing programs on Windows, you will eventually start Stellarium and see something similar to this,
What you actually see will be very dependent on the time of day you run the program, as it works in real time and is showing the sky as it is now
If you have had problems with the installation please e-mail me at webmaster@aylesbury-astronomy.org.uk and I shall get back to you
To get things going properly you now need to do basic set-ups,
- if Stellarium is running in a window, maximise the window
- hover the mouse in the lower left hand corner of the program window (just above the Windows menu button) and you should see the following,
You will have noticed vertical and horizontal icons appear, the vertical are the settings and the horizontal are the controls you can switch on and off whilst observing. If you hover the mouse over any of the icons a line of text appears that tells you the icons function. This article will not go into what each icon does, that is for you to play with, but as a start you must first setup your location by,
- Select the top icon of the vertical column as shown,
Where you see the magnifying glass symbol below the city list, type in “Aylesbury” – or your nearest town on the list, select it and make this the default location by ticking the “Use as Default” checkbox in the lower left. When you have experience of the program you can come back later and enter your precise Latitude and Longitude
To leave the Location set-up click the X at the top right hand corner of the locations box. You may find that the sky view changes slightly as the program re-maps the sky for your location
- Select the Configuration icon (the spanner) from the vertical column as shown,
Ensure that,
- “English” is selected in the Program language drop down list and
- “All available” is selected in the Selected object information section
- Now select the Navigation tab in the Configuration box,
Ensure that,
- Both boxes are ticked in the Control section
- The System date and time box is ticked in the Startup date and time section
- Now re-select the Main tab in the Configuration box and click Save Settings and leave the Configuration set-up by clicking the X at the top right hand corner of the Configuration box
You are now setup and ready play, you can travel backward and forward in time using the controls at the right end of the horizontal bar, you can select an object in the sky, centre it in the screen by pressing the space bar and read its information up on the top left. Zoom in and out using the “PGUP” and “PGDN” keys
Try the following,
- If you using the program during daylight hours, turn off the Atmosphere by pressing the “A” key
- Choose the Search tool from the vertical column and type in M31 and Enter
- Zoom in by using the PGUP key, zoom out again using the PGDN key
And,
- Choose the Search tool from the vertical column and type in Jupiter and Enter
- Zoom in by using the PGUP key
- The satellites of Jupiter are shown in their true positions, and can be seen to move over time
There is much to explore, I use Stellarium to control my Celestron CPC800 and I can spend much more time observing rather than searching
As I mentioned previously, there is a Stellarium App for the iPhone, downloadable from the App store and this uses the positioning sensors in the iPhone to show the section of sky wherever you point the phone, it’s neat but not as comprehensive as the full PC version. The iPad is better served by an excellent App called Star Walk and I recommend that to all, if you get the chance to see it on an iPad you will be impressed
So, give Stellarium a go and have fun
Clear Skies
Geoff Evans
Aylesbury Astronomical Society
