Description
Which constellations are up tonight, and has Jupiter risen yet? Poking around a phone app only answers half of it. KStars lays out the whole sky on your desktop: pick any place, any date, any time, and it shows the planets, constellations and millions of stars overhead at that moment.
Built by KDE as an open-source desktop planetarium, it works as a beginner star finder and also hooks up to a real telescope: search for an object, scrub through time and build tonight's observing list without leaving one window.
Sky for any time and place: Set latitude, longitude and a date, and the star map redraws for it, whether that is a thousand years ago or next week.
Toggle what you see: Planets, constellation lines, nebulae, clusters and comets each have a switch, so you can hide everything except the one thing you are hunting.
Search and slew: Type a planet or constellation name and the view jumps right to it instead of making you scan the dome.
Observation planner: Queue the targets you want tonight and order them by altitude and visibility window.
Ekos astrophotography suite: The built-in Ekos controls mounts, telescopes and cameras, tying the star chart to what you are actually shooting.
Built by KDE as an open-source desktop planetarium, it works as a beginner star finder and also hooks up to a real telescope: search for an object, scrub through time and build tonight's observing list without leaving one window.
Features
Sky for any time and place: Set latitude, longitude and a date, and the star map redraws for it, whether that is a thousand years ago or next week.
Toggle what you see: Planets, constellation lines, nebulae, clusters and comets each have a switch, so you can hide everything except the one thing you are hunting.
Search and slew: Type a planet or constellation name and the view jumps right to it instead of making you scan the dome.
Observation planner: Queue the targets you want tonight and order them by altitude and visibility window.
Ekos astrophotography suite: The built-in Ekos controls mounts, telescopes and cameras, tying the star chart to what you are actually shooting.
