Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

Features

sky

• default catalogue of over 600,000 stars
• extra catalogues with more than 177 million stars
• default catalogue of over 80,000 deep-sky objects
• extra catalogue with more than 1 million deep-sky objects
• asterisms and illustrations of the constellations
• constellations for 20+ different cultures
• images of nebulae (full Messier catalogue)
• 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

visualisation

• equatorial and azimuthal grids
• star twinkling
• shooting stars
• tails of comets
• iridium flares simulation
• eclipse simulation
• supernovae and novae simulation
• 3D sceneries
• skinnable landscapes with spheric panorama projection

customizability

• plugin system adding artifical satellites, ocular simulation, telescope control and more
• ability to add new solar system objects from online resources...
• add your own deep sky objects, landscapes, constellation images, scripts...