Stellarium Astronomy Software
Other languages:
latest version is 26.1
Linux
source
Linux
snap
Linux
amd64; Qt5; AppImage
macOS
11.0+; Qt6; universal
Windows
x86_64; Qt5; Windows 7+
Windows
x86_64; Qt6; Windows 10+
Windows
ARM64; Qt6; Windows 10+
Stellarium Web
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.
A shooting star flashes past the Jupiter. You can select different intensities in the View window.
view screenshots »
The great nebula in Orion. Press N to bring up the nebula labels.
view screenshots »
The dance of the planets above ESO headquarters, near Munich.
view screenshots »
Full sky view of the constellations, their boundaries, the Milky Way.
view screenshots »
Constellation art turned on.
view screenshots »
',
Click on the picture to the left for details.
features
sky
default catalogue of over 600,000 stars
extra catalogues with more than 220 million stars
default catalogue of over 80,000 deep-sky objects
extra catalogue with more than 1 million deep-sky objects
asterisms and illustrations of the constellations
constellations for 40+ different cultures
calendars of 35+ different cultures
images of nebulae (full Messier catalogue)
realistic Milky Way
very realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset
full 6D astrometry for bright stars
modelling movement for various of binary stars
the planets and their satellites
all-sky surveys (DSS, HiPS)
interface
a powerful zoom
time control
multilingual interface
scripting interface
fisheye projection for planetarium domes
spheric mirror projection for your own low-cost dome
graphical interface and extensive keyboard control
HTTP interface (web-based control, remote control API)
telescope control
visualisation
several coordinate grids
precession circles
star twinkling
shooting stars
tails of comets
eclipse simulation
supernovae and novae simulation
exoplanet locations
ocular view simulation
3D sceneries
skinnable landscapes with spheric panorama projection
customizability
plugin system adding artifical satellites, ocular simulation, telescope control and more
ability to add new solar system objects from online resources...
add your own deep sky objects, landscapes, constellation images, scripts...
presentations
Susanne M. Hoffmann gave a
public lecture "Painting Babylonian - Constellations of Ancient Mesopotamia" (YouTube)
for the
HK Space Museum
on November 22th, 2024
A. Wolf gave a
common review of Stellarium's features (RuTube)
for the
Open distance methodological seminar for teachers of astronomy and astropedagogues
on November 20th, 2024
G. Zotti gave a
presentation about Virtual Archaeoastronomy with Stellarium (YouTube)
for the
Society for Cultural Astronomy in the American Southwest (SCAAS)
on February 25th, 2023
A. Wolf gave a
presentation about Stellarium 1.0 (YouTube)
at the
Siberian Astronomical Forum SibAstro 2022
on September 25th, 2022
A. Wolf gave a
presentation about Stellarium — key changes in the last 5 years (YouTube)
at the
Siberian Astronomical Forum SibAstro 2021
on September 25th, 2021
G. Zotti gave a
presentation about Stellarium (YouTube)
for the
China-VO (Virtual Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences)
on February 1st, 2021
G. Zotti gave an
invited talk (YouTube)
at the
IAU Symposium 367
on December 9th, 2020
G. Zotti gave a
talk about creating 3D sceneries (YouTube)
at the
TAG2016 Skyscapes session
on December 20th, 2016
news
Stellarium v26.1
Stellarium v25.4
Stellarium 25.3
Stellarium 25.2
Stellarium 25.1
Stellarium 24.4
Stellarium 24.3
Stellarium 24.2
Stellarium 24.1
Stellarium 23.4
system requirements
minimal
64-bit operating system
Linux/Unix; Windows 7 and above; Windows 10 on Arm64; macOS 10.13 and above
3D graphics card which supports OpenGL 2.1 and GLSL 1.3 or OpenGL ES 2.0
1 GiB RAM
1 GiB on disk
Keyboard
Mouse, Touchpad or similar pointing device
recommended
64-bit operating system
Linux/Unix; Windows 10 and above; Windows 11 on Arm64; macOS 12.0 and above
3D graphics card which supports OpenGL 3.3 and above
4 GiB RAM or more
10 GiB on disk
Keyboard
Mouse, Touchpad or similar pointing device
Moderately dark environment (deep shadow or indoors)
developers
Project coordinator:
Fabien Chéreau
Graphic designer: Martín Bernardi
Developers:
Alexander V. Wolf
Georg Zotti
Guillaume Chéreau
, Ruslan Kabatsayev, Worachate Boonplod, Henry Leung
Sky cultures researcher:
Susanne M. Hoffmann
Collaborators: Jocelyn Girod
and everyone else in the community
financial support
Many individuals and organizations are supporting the development of Stellarium by donations, and the most generous financial contributors (with donations of $250 or more) are
BairesDev, Litslink, Daniel, Laurence Holt, Astronomie-Werkstatt "Sterne ohne Grenzen", Bryan, Dotcom-Monitor, John Bellora, Marla Pinaire, Jeff Moe (Spacecruft), SSSTwitter,
Peter Reigber, Incognito, Michel Payette, Vernon Hermsen, Triplebyte,
Satish Mallesh, Vlad Magdalin, Philippe Renoux, Fito Martin.
silver sponsors
collaborate
You can learn more about Stellarium, get support and help the project from these links:
discussions
mailing list
wiki
FAQ
scripts
landscapes
3D sceneries
sky cultures
developers documentation
scripting
translations
get support, report bugs, request new features
all releases
user guide
PDF
weekly snapshots
ppa for ubuntu linux
archive
acknowledgment
If the Stellarium planetarium was helpful for your research work, please cite the following paper in your acknowledgment:
This research has made use of the Stellarium planetarium
Zotti, G., Hoffmann, S. M., Wolf, A., Chéreau, F., & Chéreau, G. (2021). The Simulated Sky: Stellarium for Cultural Astronomy Research. Journal of Skyscape Archaeology, 6(2), 221–258.
DOI: 10.1558/jsa.17822
Or you may
download the BibTeX file of the paper
to create another citation format.
Please note that the software has several releases since these fundamentals were published:
Stellarium contributors (2026). Stellarium v26.1 Astronomy Software. URL https://stellarium.org/.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19428881
Chéreau, F. et al. Stellarium: Planetarium for your computer.
ASCL: 2603.001
Zotti, G., Wolf, A. (2022). Stellarium: Finally at Version 1.0! And Beyond. Journal of Skyscape Archaeology, 8(2), 332–334.
DOI: 10.1558/jsa.25608
git
The latest development snapshot of Stellarium is kept on github. If you want to compile development versions of Stellarium, this is the place to get the source code.
browse GitHub
books
Documentation and description of the sky cultures, state March 2022, plus a lot of additional research:
Hoffmann, S. and Wolfschmidt, G. (2022, eds.).
Astronomy in Culture - Cultures of Astronomy
, Featuring the Proceedings of a splinter meeting in the German Astronomical Society. tredition, Ahrensburg.
supporters and friends
Stellarium is produced by the efforts of the developer team, with the help and support of the
following people and organisations
langlinks