Astronomical
related software
and astronomers downloadable tools
SpaceSnap
- Easy to use
Astrocam software, free
capture program primarily intended for astronomical use.
Build-in viewer. Soon to be released but for the moment
still under development.
Free
astronomical software downloads
- Stellarium
Amazing planetarium software: 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. Runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
Recommended software!
website - download
- AutoStar
Suits
Amazing planetarium software and
Instructional Video will teach you the night sky and how
to use your telescope.
AutoStar Suite Astronomer Edition software will help you
learn the night sky. It displays more than 10,000
celestial objects including planets, stars, galaxies and
nebulas. You can print out star charts and even plan your
observing sessions. It operates on any Windows® based
PC.
Website - download
- Cartes
du Ciel
This program enables you to draw sky charts, making use
of the data in 16 catalogs of stars and nebulae. In
addition the position of planets, asteroids and comets
are shown.
The purpose of this program is to prepare different sky
maps for a particular observation. A large number of
parameters help you to choose specifically or
automatically which catalogs to use, the colour and the
dimension of stars and nebulae, the representation of
planets, the display of labels and coordinate grids, the
superposition of pictures, the condition of visibility
and more. All these features make this celestial atlas
more complete than a conventional planetarium. FreeWare!
Website - download
- Virtual
Moon Atlas
Free software for Moon observation or survey. This
software, realized by Patrick Chevalley and Christian
Legrand can visualize the Moon aspect for every date and
hour and pilot computerized telescopes on the Moon
surface. It permits also to study lunar formations with
unique database and pictures library compiled by
Christian Legrand.
website - download
- Celestia
The free space simulation that lets you explore our
universe in three dimensions. Unlike most planetarium
software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of
the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to
any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.
Celestia comes with a large catalog of stars, galaxies,
planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. If
that's not enough, you can download dozens of easy to
install add-ons with more objects. Runs on Windows,
Linux, and Mac OS X.
website - download
- Where
is M13?
A Three Dimensional Galactic Atlas! We all have our
favorite deep sky objects that we've looked at hundreds
and hundreds of times. We know where to find them in the
night sky, but most of us have little idea where they lie
in the three-dimensional space around our Galaxy. A
unique application that helps you visualize the locations
and physical properties of deep sky objects in and around
the Galaxy. Runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X
website - download
- Home
Planet
Home Planet is a Microsoft Windows application which
calculates the position of the Earth, Sun, Moon, planets,
asteroids, comets, and Earth satellites with map of the
Earth, moon and planets. Complete star chart, object
catalog, planetary view, track satellites, simple
astronomical but complete. Lite and Full versions
available.
Simple, but one advantage: works on very "lite"
PC's too.
website - download
-
- Photographic
Moon Book
For those unfamiliar with this free publication, it is a
photographic guidebook to the moon containing nearly 300
annotated images of lunar features with complete feature
descriptions in 33 map sections--- and too much more
useful information to list here. It is an excellent (I
feel the very best available, free or otherwise)
observer's guide to our Moon.
website - download (106Mb PDF!)
- AstroCalc
To calculate the position of planets and give their
appearance.
- To calculate hours of Rising/Transit/Setting
- Visualization of the apparent diameter of planets ones
compared to the others…
- Visualization of the position of planets on the
ecliptic.
- Visualization of planets in heliocenric position.
- Positions of the satellites around Jupiter, as seen
from Earth.
- Calculate the position of comets...
website
- Sky
Atlas
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.
website - download
- Star
charts
Free PDF star charts!
website - download
Webcam
and astrophotography related tools
- SpaceSnap
under development
- wxAstroCapture
wxAstroCapture is a free capture program primarily
intended for astronomical use, it is developed as a joint
effort between Martin Burri (Switzerland) and Carsten
Arnholm (Norway). Installation instructions and program
download is found here, there is also an online Yahoo
group where users are welcome to share experiences.
Windows and linuX!
website - download
- ImageTOOLSca
ImageTOOLSca is a package containing 2 applications,
ImageVIEWca for image viewing and processing, and
ImageHEADca for viewing FITS and EXIF headers without
having to opening the actual image.
This software was initially created as a lightweight
viewer for FITS images and other image formats. Most
programs supporting FITS are too complex and slow for
"on and off viewing". The software provides
useful processing features that are otherwise available
only in large, complex and expensive software packages.
website - download
-
- K3CCDTools
Application dedicated for astro-imaging. It includes
video-capturing (supporting wide range of video capture
devices), auto-guiding and frame aligning and stacking /
summing.
It also provides simple image post-processing. However,
K3CCDTools is not limited to astro-imaging domain, it
offers to be used in various fields of video / images
processing (digital photography, video pre-processing).
It also valuable software for processing of microscopical
photos.
website
- RegiStax
Improve astro images by stacking them. Can be used for
AVI's or pictures. Rather complex but good!
website - download
- AstroSnap and
AstroSnap Pro
AstroSnap (Freeware) and AstroSnap Pro (Shareware) are
two astronomical imaging programs especially designed for
webcams
website
Other
useful tools for astronomers, satellite enthusiasts etc...
- WXtoImg
The world's best weather satellite (WXsat) signal to
image decoder.
Simply connect a 137-138MHz FM communications receiver,
scanner, or weather satellite receiver to your soundcard
and get stunning colour images directly from weather
satellites. The only other item you'll need is an antenna
for receiving the circularly polarised signals.
WXtoImg is a fully automated APT and WEFAX weather
satellite (wxsat) decoder. The software supports
recording, decoding, editing, and viewing on all versions
of Windows, Linux, and MacOS X. WXtoImg supports
real-time decoding, map overlays, advanced colour
enhancements, 3-D images, animations, multi-pass images,
projection transformation (e.g. Mercator), text overlays,
automated web page creation, temperature display, GPS
interfacing, and control for many weather satellite
receivers, communications receivers, and scanners
website - download
- Orbitron
Orbitron is a satellite tracking system for radio-, WX-,
astro-, amateur and observing purposes. It's also used by
weather professionals, satellite communication users,
astronomers, UFO hobbyist and even astrologers.
Application shows the positions of satellites at any
given moment (in real or simulated time). It's FREE
(Cardware) and it's probably one of the easiest and most
powerful satellite trackers, according to opinions of
thousands of users from all over the world.
website
-
- World
Wide Telescope
Want to
see the same images that scientists at NASA use for their
research or perform your own research with those images?
Or do you want to see the Earth from the same perspective
that astronauts see as they descend to Earth? How about
taking a 5 minute break and viewing a panorama of a
different city? Install WWT and start your explorations.
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org - download
- more to come soon!
Astrophotography, info about telescopes,
software, tips & tricks, homemade scopes and lenses etc.
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