28 April 2008

Stellarium

We have always wanted to know the names of the stars looking down on us and it has always seemed too difficult.  Until now.  Go to Stellarium and download the version that matches your operating system.

Then go to the setup area and enter what the Longitude and Latitude and altitude of your home and enter it in.  If you don't know them, just type "[Yourhome] Latitude longitude" in Google and you should get a number of results.

Now you will see the sky as it should appear to you at the current time.  It constantly updates based on the computer's clock. Absolutely marvellous.  We installed it on one of our laptops and then went outside and matched up Mars, Pollux, Saturn and lots more.

Now stargazing is much easier!
(You can even see what the star would be when viewed from another planet!)

2 comments:

Bretta said...

Thanks for sharing! We were needing just such a program not long ago and I'm sure we will use it often this summer.

DavidofOz said...

We were so excited we all bundled up to brave the 4C (39F) evening temperatures and went star and planet spotting. Finally an easy way to do so!