Download free software to learn astronomy
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Photo Some rights reserved by forestgladesiwander
Whether you want to explore the depth of the universe for fun or to teach your children there are three free open source programs that allow you to do just that on your computer.
KStars works with KDE for Windows and it is distributed free under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). It allows you to see the sky as it is from any chosen location on Earth and has a staggering 100 million stars, 13,000 objects and all planets in the Milky Way. You can also retrieve data from an online database.
Stellarium is another amazing program that allows you to see the sky from wherever you choose. Among the many features it has a catalogue with over 600,000 stars, a realistic Milky Way, sunrises and sunsets and several types of simulations (such as shooting stars or eclipse). In a few words it is a very good teaching tool. It has an interface in many languages and can be downloaded for Windows, Mac or Linux. This is one not to be missed.
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With Celestia you can actually travel across the universe and you do not have to watch the sky only from planet Earth. You can travel throughout the Milky Way and beyond. The zoom and navigation are seamless and you can see stars, comets, asteroids and even spacecraft. And if that is not enough you can download even more objects. You can download it for free for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Other things you can do online for free:
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PaulaHenry1 21 months ago
Awesome, I never thought I had the outer space at my fingertips! Thanks for the info!