I'm in Fairbanks right now, so I need to be reminded of what a night sky actually looks like.

/it's midnight, it should be dark; it's midnight, it should be dark

Fairbanks, Alaska, to clarify.

CtrlAltDelete: *sticks head outside window*

Aside from the fact that I'm in NYC now, even when I was living in a relatively small city I still had to drive at least 20 minutes out toward the country before I could see jack shiat in the sky. Here, let me show you the city-dweller's version of "sticks head out window"



It is very pretty, yes, but notice something missing--something which someone might write planetarium software to simulate?

/just sayin'
//don't be bustin on the cool ass artifical night-sky generators

Plane-ariums are neato.

Oh, I hope this picture lasts on the mainpage.

CtrlAltDelete: Nah, it's cool for those who need it, I suppose.

I'm just jealous that I have to drive way out into the country to see the actual stars in the sky

CtrlAltDelete: You wanna trade?

Maybe a time-share thing where we each get half the year at one place and the other?

/you get the country in winter and NYC in summer

CtrlAltDelete: DONE.

Wait, what?

/think I need to think my cunning plan all the way through

Anyone know how this compares to Celestia?

I live 16 miles west of New York City. You can see the morning stars and sometimes the brightest evening stars.

/starts painting his ceiling black and getting out the projector

Is there a timeshare in NYC for the "doesn't suck ass" season? Oh, wait, I forgot, it's NYC.

/Can own a car
//Can own a gun
///Can live on 40K a year in a nice place
////Still less of a chance to be robbed
/////Suck it

haha stupid new yorkers


;)

The screen shots do look very cool, and they have an add-on for additional landscapes. Maybe Vin Diesel can use that NYC photo of his in Stellarium for a real-time view of what he would be seeing!

I shall try that.

As thisispete suggested, have a look at Celestia too.

Though you can use it as a planetarium, it's meant to be more of a space simulator. The advantage is that it allows you to pick any planet or star and actuall fly there.

wtf?!?

i thought this was some link to free atmosphereum!

damn it all!

NO! I Won't download anything onto my computer! I WON'T!

Ka-boom!
Paris, France mirror surrenders.

Stellarium: Look up at the stars from Earth. Also able to zoom in.

Celestia: Instantly fly anywhere in the known universe, to look at anything from any angle and distance.

These programs have different purposes,and both do it quite well... although Celestia's graphics engine looks extremely outdated and needs a serious overhaul.

Stellarium is like having a powerful telescope.

Celestia is like becoming Superman.

/loves his Ubuntu desktop

Winstars works pretty well too and is free (unless you want to spring for the upgrade pack for a piddling $9). I've been using it to figure out when the moon will set over downtown for a photo op.

We use stellarium in our planetarium. We built a 15 foot dome with a fisheye digital projector in the center. Seats 20. Take a look:Planetarium Construction Information

We were among the first users of the original OS X version. We installed a customized keypad with programmable keys to control the software, and we project an image 180 degrees wide x 140 degrees tall.

Among other things we use stellarium, various panorama images like a virtual tour of the grand canyon, and so on.

Oh, and you could play Halo in it, if you plug the xbox into the projector.

Carl Sagan grew up in Brooklyn. I grew up in Queens. We both have in common that the first time we saw "the stars" as our ancestors might have seen them was at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.

Great stuff. They now have the first-ever Zeiss Mark IX planetarium projector. Has anyone been to see the Moby screensaver show at the new Rose Center?

Digistar rules.

In 3d? How exactly would a 3d starscape look different to a 2d one?
"Ooohh look! That pinprick of light is obviously closer than that one!"
(DNRTFA)

Automatic Jack is an example of why the gene-pool needs chlorine.

It has a "fisheye" mode which can be projected onto a curved surface (see my earlier post)...hence 3D. But the other posters are correct, the program is ostensibly 2-D whereas Celestia allows you to navigate through space, giving a perception of 3-D that Stellarium cannot.

Welcome aboard.

Dr. Adams: Hello, children. My name is Dr. Adams. Welcome to the plane'arium.

Kyle: I thought it was "plane-tarium."

Dr. Adams: Well, it is. But I have a bone disease which impedes my ability to pronounce the "t" in "plane'arium"

Mr. Garrison: That's a pretty weird bone disease.

Dr. Adams: Yes. Perhaps someday I can get a bone-marrow transplant.

How do these compare to Starry Sky Pro?

I found this a while back, it's pretty nice. Celestia is cool too if you want to check out the planets.

What's the program that shows the earth's surface realtime? You can see the sun move across etc, pretty sure it's open source.

Punch_McDrunkHead

Is it DesktopEarth that you're thinking of?

darthgarlic: Automatic Jack is an example of why the gene-pool needs chlorine.

How is that then? How am I incorrect? Even if it is projected onto a screen or dome it is still 2D. That said, it does however look like an interesting piece of software.
Qualify your statement or keep your snide little comments to yourself.

Perhaps you should have a quick swig of that chlorine yourself.

We've got muthafarkin' snakes on a muthafarkin' planetarium!

thanks little big man. that's the one.

Very nice program, my 6yo is a huge night sky fan (living in New Mexico, there is alot to like) He is going to go nuts for it. Thanks submitter, thanks programmers, well done.

Just looked at the program--very, very nice. I really dig it.

Starman That is very much THE kewlness of the year. Brings back memories of playing with the college planetarium projector at ELAC....

Thanks. We like it, and it's not bad for the money...we installed it at 1/10 the renovation cost of a local college planetarium. It is true they have a bigger dome, but we can do a greater variety of things.