It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.

Features

Sky

  • Default catalogue of over 600,000 stars
  • Extra catalogues with more than 210 million stars
  • Asterisms and illustrations of the constellations
  • Constellations for twelve 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
  • Spherical mirror projection for your own low-cost dome
  • All new graphical interface and extensive keyboard control
  • Telescope control

Visualization

  • Equatorial and azimuthal grids
  • Star twinkling
  • Shooting stars
  • Eclipse simulation
  • Supernovae simulation
  • Skinnable landscapes, now with spherical panorama projection

Customizability

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

What's New

The major changes of this version:

  • Changes in DSO rendering
  • Improvements in Core
  • Improvements in Telescope Control plugin
  • Updates in sky cultures
  • Behind the scenes, many more minor issues were fixed.

Full list of changes:

  • Added optional drop shadow behind InfoText
  • Added ability of immediate-store for (hopefully) all main program properties (GH: #3987)
  • Added designation for η Car star (GH: #633)
  • Added code for Tachelhit language
  • Added sidereal time in degrees to StelObject InfoMap
  • Added test to avoid missing colors for NebCl type
  • Added new nomenclature
  • Added alias for Asia/Choibalsan time zone (GH: #3955, #3953)
  • Added proper name for LDN43
  • Fixed kerning of curved text (GH: #4006)
  • Fixed application of text baseline shift
  • Fixed Milky Way texture (GH: #3995)
  • Fixed typos (GH: #3993, #4015)
  • Fixed mistakes in Korean SC (GH: #3994)
  • Fixed proper motion for pulsars
  • Fixed minimum target version for macOS when Qt5 is using
  • Fixed color for NebCl type
  • Fixed sizes of proportional hints for DSO
  • Fixed description of Arabic (Lunar mansions) SC (GH: #3938)
  • Fixed description of Arabic (Arabian peninsula) SC (GH: #3944)
  • Fixed typos in Arabic (Indigenous) skyculture (GH: #3939)
  • Fixed BOM char in source code
  • Fixed constellation Pleiades (HR -> HIP) in Greek (Leiden Aratea) SC (GH: #3931)
  • Fixed translating months in AstroCalc/Graphs after changing language (GH: #3907)
  • Fixed typos in Mongolian skyculture (GH: #3913)
  • Fixed typos in Indian skyculture (GH: #3908)
  • Fixed typos in Romanian skyculture (GH: #3912)
  • Fixed few security alerts for JS code (GH: #3918, #3920, #3917)
  • Fixed compiling planetarium in some systems (GH: #3905)
  • Fixed missing parts of refactoring
  • Fixed setting 2 lines in ArchaeoLines plugin (GH: #3909)
  • Fixed saving selected object information (GH: #3910)
  • Fixed coordinates in '20 Fun Naked-Eye Double Stars' script (GH: #3835)
  • Changed core: keep FOV search radius in hiDPI screen consistent from user perspective (GH: #3985)
  • Changed core: attempt to resolve HIP first (GH: #3980)
  • Changed core: Refactoring drawing nebulae markers (GH: #3968)
  • Changed core: Allow dimming of DSO hints and labels
  • Changed core: Make some landscape variables static, and properties of LandscapeMgr (GH: #3951, #3574)
  • Changed core and Solar System Editor plugin: improved size of small asteroids
  • Changed core: Rewrite spheric mirror to make it more efficient (GH: #3535, #3954)
  • Changed core: Remove a useless OpenGL call
  • Changed Telescope Control plugin: Show an even more clear hint that ASCOM is disabled in Qt6 builds
  • Changed Telescope Control plugin: INDI support is optional now
  • Changed Telescope Control plugin: switch to INDI v2.1.1 (GH: #3269)
  • Changed Satellites plugin: User can decide if newly added satellites are visible by default now (GH: #3986)
  • Changed Satellites plugin: Avoid bad orbit lines (GH: #3934)
  • Changed Satellites plug-in: small speedup
  • Changed Calendars plugin: add drop shadow for better readability
  • Updated Norse SC (GH: #3990, #3991)
  • Updated default list of locations
  • Updated default list of minor bodies
  • Updated list of planetary features
  • Updated discovery circumstances for comets and for minor planets
  • Updated photometry data for satellites
  • Updated translations
  • Updated infrastructure: Let system-installed fast_float be found (GH: #3949)
  • Updated WebUI in Remote Control plug-in (GH: #3929)
  • Updated JS libraries in Remote Control plugin-in (GH: #3923)
  • Updated default catalog of pulsars
  • Removed texture of NGC104