Stellarium - Software Review

Robbie Ferguson: We are going to introduce to you a program that you’ve heard of Google Star, right. That’s the software that allows you to kind of—they took Google Earth and put into the sky, right so you can look around into the sky. But there's a program that is actually open source that does a very, very similar thing. So when I say open source it’s a free program. It’s absolutely free. You can actually download it, modify it if you wanted to, redistribute it, share it with your friends and things like that. It’s called Stellarium and this application is positively free. It’s kind of hard to see in the field like this because, you know, I'm looking at the stars but I'm actually looking up at the sky here from where I am and we can kind of pan around the sky. Cool thing though is that you can actually you know just you would expect you can search for stuff like Jupiter, right, like this is kind of stuff of sci-fi movies when we were kids, right. So I type in Jupiter, I'm just kind of zoom in and look at what happens here. Carrie Webb: Oh no way! Robbie Ferguson: I did get right in there and these are actual satellite images, right. So you can look at that, you know, the moon and stuff. You see how it’s moving. That’s because it’s actually moving at the rate that it would be moving in the sky right now. Carrie Webb: Oh wow! Robbie Ferguson: You know what? Okay, so I'm just going to— Carrie Webb: That is incredible. Robbie Ferguson: I'm going to actually pause time here so that we can zoom in on the sky. Carrie Webb: Wow! Robbie Ferguson: Okay, even just a little moon and we can get right in there and these are actual satellite images. Very, very cool, it’s called Stellarium and that software is available for free through synaptic package manager. Carrie Webb: John Robert in the chat room says, “That’s cause in program.” Robbie Ferguson: It’s very cool. Carrie Webb: Are they are coming back? Robbie Ferguson: No. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: That was me tuning on the ringer. So don’t miss the next thing. Carrie Webb: Okay and John Robert said, “It saves me having to go outside.” I don’t think he get this until UV rays from your computer screen now you know in the day time. Robbie Ferguson: But you know what do I feel living in the city and you're not necessary going to see the stars at night even if it is fairly clear night. But to be honest with you, with my naked eyes I know that I have super powers but I can't see Jupiter like that. So it’s very, very cool. All you want to do is just go into synaptic package manager, okay this is under system administration synaptic package manager, type in Stellarium. I think it’s how it’s spelled, no it’s not let's double check. Oh, Stellarium, pardon me. That makes more sense. There we go so it just Stellarium, spell it as you see it on the screen there. Click on that and go on mark for installation and then hit apply and you’ll be able to install that your Linux system. Now if you want to get it for your Windows or Mac system because it’s compatible all across the board you can go to their website. We will post the URL for that in our show notes but it is just Stellarium.org and that will give you the version for whichever version is that, which operating system you're running. Carrie Webb: Great. Robbie Ferguson: How cool. I like that kind of stuff. I like technology this kind of like, you know, from the sci-fi, 80’s movies and stuff. Carrie Webb: Yeah. Robbie Ferguson: But it’s real. It’s like actual images and things and there are more features to it on that like you can actually show the outlines of the constellations and things like that. You can zoom in on nebulas which is very cool. Carrie Webb: Wow, could you make it your desktop like if you—I only know how to do it your— Robbie Ferguson: You can take screen shots. Yeah, you can take a screen shot. Of course screen is good way to do it on pretty much any operating system Linux watch your property if you want to save the image. In Windows you have to bring up like paint or something or GIMP or Photoshop and paste to them. Carrie Webb: Okay. Robbie Ferguson: But yeah, you could use screenshot if you like it because it’s open source. If it’s for personally use even a screen shot you'll fine to use that. If you're going to be using it for commercial use then they request that or they do have some information on the website about, you know, just making sure that you're complying with any licenses with the images and things like that.