Free desktop planetarium for Mac OS X

If you enjoy astronomy or just wish to learn more about the night sky – you need to download the excellent (and free!) Stellarium software project. This desktop planetarium provides a realistic view of the heavens to help you learn more about stars, nebulae, constellations and other celestial delights.

Stellarium was started by Fabien Chéreau in 2001 and is now supported by a team of talented open source developers on Sourceforge. Stellarium runs on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows and can even be used to control a telescope or dome projector.

The software does a nice job of balancing a rich set of features with ease of use. Most Mac users will be up to speed after a few minutes of playing with the settings and options. But if not, Stellarium provides support with a Wiki, FAQ and User Guide.

what is stellarium?

“Stellarium is a software project that allows people to use their home computer as a virtual planetarium. It will calculate the positions of the Sun and Moon, planets and stars, and draw how the sky would look to an observer depending on their location and the time. It can also draw the constellations and simulate astronomical phenomena such as meteor showers, and solar or lunar eclipses.”

is stellarium free?

“Yes! Stellarium is open source software. Anyone has the right to download and use the software for free, to distribute it without modifying to other people, or modify the source code, all of this under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).”

where to download stellarium?

Mouse over and download Stellarium today.