You can't beat the value of Stellarium.
Stellarium is short and sweet, to the point, just the way I like an application.
It's rather short of features, compared with commercial programs like Starry Night Pro. There are a lot of times when you don't want to wait for Starry Night Pro and all it's features to load just to discover where a particular planet is located. What it does do, it does relatively well.
Stellarium can be extended with plugins, and comes with several out of the starting gate. I use the angle tool, computerized telescope support, and ocular extensively.
The computerized telescope support is lacking. It doesn't support ASCOM for total observatory integration, but it does support a number of telescopes, including CelestronSky-Watcher and Meade. The lack of a mouse interface to send slew commands to the telescope means you have to use the keyboard's hotkeys (CTRL-1 slews Telescope #1 to the currently selected point). Without a suitable mouse interface for this feature, it breaks workflow for many people (although hotkeys are faster in the long run).
Still, you can't beat free, and overall this is one of my favorite astronomy programs. I use it every day to educate people.
Review details
- Interface
- Features
- Ease of use
- Value
- Recommend to a friend? Yes
- Posted Jun 15, 2012 for v0.11.3
Stellarium has always been one of the better planetarium softwares and I don't dispute that which is why I gave it another go to see the changes.
The interface is alright, sort of quirky trying to maneuver around and I wasn't that impressed with the view ports. The graphics are still decent. When I typed in where I live, it would stick me on Saturn, heh.
All in all, it's a great planetarium although I still favor Winstars, which to me, still has a better, smoother interface. Stellarium didn't sway or wow me again, so maybe, next time?
I still recommend this, just not as much as I would like to.
Review details
- Interface
- Features
- Ease of use
- Value
- Recommend to a friend? Yes
- Posted Apr 14, 2011 for v0.10.6.1
Stellarium reminds me of why I always loved computers growing up. Software like this provides real time, localized information that you just can't get out of a book. The features are plentiful, with some you don't expect but that enhance the experience very much. If I have a complaint, it's that Stellarium, like other programs of its kind, doesn't really tell a person much beyond highly esoteric specifics, so if you're not an astronomer, this information won't be particularly interesting. If the software tied into a database that told you more about the star, like when it was discovered, by who, and any other trivia, it would make astronomy a little more accessible to us non-experts. Still, it's great to be able to look up at the stars and know, finally, what I'm looking at.
Review details
- Interface
- Features
- Ease of use
- Value
- Recommend to a friend? Yes
- Posted Sep 28, 2010 for v0.10.5
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