Cool Planetarium Software

[Renegade]

If you're a stargazer, these will put a smile on your face!

http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

They're both for viewing stars, and have different approaches, but both are GPL and a lot of fun.

Happened across them, tried them out, liked both, and thought that I'd pass them on for others to enjoy!

[app103]

I haven't run Stellarium in a long time, so I don't know for sure if it is still lacking a screensaver option (couldn't see it listed as a feature on the current website). But if it still is, there is sort of a work around for that often requested feature, that would get it to launch like one. It involves using a coding snack I did a long time ago as a helper app.

Instructions here: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=6212.msg56567#msg56567

[Carol Haynes]

One of the nice things with Stellarium is that you can drive suitably powered telescopes from a laptop.

[Edvard]

Tried both of these a while ago, Celestia had a bit of a learning curve, but one trip the help file and it was easy to get used to.  Stellarium was nicer to look at, but was a bit slow on my old box.  Was it Celestia that you could create your own orbiting objects and track them?  I'd like to see Superman orbiting reverse the Earth orbit at 10x the speed, or perhaps a randomly appearing sperm whale and bowl of petunias...  

[app103]

Was it Celestia that you could create your own orbiting objects and track them?  I'd like to see Superman orbiting reverse the Earth orbit at 10x the speed, or perhaps a randomly appearing sperm whale and bowl of petunias... 

OMG! You can have the Enterprise! http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/fic_startrek.php