Buzz
With Stellarium, exploring the universe becomes simple and no longer a complex task. Stellarium renders the sky in 3D with all observable stars from the Earth's center over time with nearly absolute precision. Not only that, Stellarium also offers quite a range of tools if you wish to delve deeper into a particular planet and its relationship with other planets, such as zooming in, zooming out, displaying positional parameters...
Guide to Using Stellarium
I. Download Link for the Latest Stellarium Version.
Stellarium can run on all three popular operating systems today: Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
=> Download Link for Stellarium
- Install after downloading to your device and begin experiencing this software.
II. How to Use Stellarium
Step 1: Launch Stellarium, the program opens up to a sky view from the capital city of Hanoi, Vietnam.
The time and sky scene are simulated almost accurately to the current time in Hanoi. You can:
- Hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse or use the arrow keys (up, down, left, right) to adjust the viewing angle.
- When you want to zoom in or out for a more detailed view of the planets, press the Page Up/Down keys on the keyboard or scroll the mouse wheel.
Zoomed-in image of the Sun from Hanoi - Vietnam at 10:22 AM on 10/10/2018.
Step 2: Guidance on utilizing certain features of the software.
1. Location Selection (Location Window).
You can observe the current sky scenery in a different location on Earth such as in Ho Chi Minh City - Vietnam, for instance. Press F6, then a window allowing location selection will appear.
Type 'Ho Chi Minh City' into the search box, then double-click on the search result. This will display the current sky view in Ho Chi Minh City on the screen.
Sky view from Ho Chi Minh City at 10:24 AM on 10/10/2018.
2. View Some Information about a Specific Planet.
You can directly click on the planet, scroll the mouse to zoom in on the planet. Information about the planet including: distance to Earth, magnitude, declination... will be displayed in the upper left corner of the screen.
3. Toggle On or Off the Meridian/Ecliptic Lines.
To use, you can use the shortcut keys E and Z.
4. Display the Drawings of Constellations.
You can activate it using the shortcut key R. This is quite an interesting feature of Stellarium.
5. Activate Labels containing the Names or Identifiers of Planets.
You can press F4 or use the Menu Sky and Viewing Options to activate labels containing the names or identifiers of planets to distinguish them from each other.
6. Search for Planets.
To open the search window, use the shortcut Ctrl + F, then you can enter the name, identifier, or specific parameters of the planet you want to find and press Enter. Immediately, the screen will zoom to the planet you are searching for.
7. Adjusting the Time.
Stellarium is real-time software running according to the time set on your computer. If it's nighttime, you can start observing right away. If it's daytime, you need to open the Date/time Window and select nighttime.
Press F5 or click on the icon on the Menu bar as shown below.
8. Fixing a Planet for Observation.
To fix the Moon in place for closer observation, simply click on the Center on selected object button on the bottom Menu bar. Once fixed, you can zoom in for observation and exploration.
Thus, Mytour has just explored some interesting features while using Stellarium with you. In addition to the mentioned features, Stellarium offers many other powerful support features such as powerful zoom, converting coordinates from Earth to other planets... Hope this article will be helpful to you. Wish you success.
