Free Software
Nothing advanced here. But software to help you get started. Computers offer a great advantage to learning and doing astronomy. There’s even some links to some podcasts to study college level Introductions to Astronomy!
Starfinder
“StarFinder is a small, FREE, planisphere program (Windows 9X/ME/NT/2000) for the beginning stargazer. It displays a whole-sky map of the stars, planets, Moon, Sun, and some deep sky objects for any date/time and lattitude. Explore how the sky changes from hour-to-hour or month-to-month. Looking for a constellation? Select it from a pop-up menu of all the constellations and adjust the time (and possibly latitude) of the map until the constellation’s outline shows up. Print maps for your outdoor viewing.” A good online user guide too
Sky Atlas
“The program is addressed to lovers and hotheads of astronomy and everyone, who wants to know how to identify constellations and other space objects: stars, galaxies, nebulas, planets. Every object in the program is described and every object can be accompanied by a picture. Easy to use and intuitive user interface allows you to browse easily the whole sky. The sky above us option helps you to specify the current stars configuration for a chosen geographical position quickly. Moreover, there is a possibility of planet and moon motion or solar eclipse simulation at any time range. The sky atlas mode can be easily switched to realistic view to admire the actual views seen in the night sky. All the maps and views can be saved to graphic files in order to use them later. “
Stellarium
“Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. 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. “
Orbiter Simulator
Ever play with MS Flight Simulator or Train Simulator? Here’s another simulator for space!!!
“ORBITER is a free flight simulator that goes beyond the confines of Earth’s atmosphere. Launch the Space Shuttle from Kennedy Space Center to deploy a satellite, rendezvous with the International Space Station or take the futuristic Delta-glider for a tour through the solar system – the choice is yours.
But make no mistake – ORBITER is not a space shooter. The emphasis is firmly on realism, and the learning curve can be steep. Be prepared to invest some time and effort to brush up on your orbital mechanics background. Good starting points are JPL’s Basics of Space Flight, and R. Braeunig’s Rocket & Space Technology. “
If you have experience with Flight Simulator then you wold enjoy this, but for beginners to astronomy or computers, you may want to postpone using this for a while.
HNSKY
A nice simple star program can even set it to view in red only for nightime use. Its been around a long time.
“Welcome to the free planetarium program HNSKY for Windows. It is complete with the SAO, PPM, Tycho-2 star databases, up to date deepsky database containing 26000 objects , Realsky (r) images and access to the external GSC and USNO CDROM star catalogs. Telescope control using the universal ASCOM package, a Realsky viewer (incl. source) DDE controlled from HNSKY and a BMP/JPEG to FITS conversion utility. “
Don’t let it scare you. You can download a simple version and learn to use it.
Cartes Du Ciel
“Sky charts is primarily for printing out skycharts for observing rather than a strict planetarium program. There are many additional catalogs at the sky chart homepage for downloading and expanding it’s functionality. After you download all the catalogs, this program produces incredible star charts. Printing them is fantastic and can be used at the telescope. Only real drawback, is that computers don’t label charts as well as people (at least we’re still better at something). This is probably the best program for the serious amateur, particularly if you download all the add-ons available for it (preferably with a broadband modem). You can even download the Hubble guide star catalog to produce 14th magnitude charts with this program. I’ve downloaded the 6 gigabyte USNO star catalog (16th magnitude). Not too bad with DSL modem. That’s alot of stars.” (3.5MB)
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