Beginner's Guide

Stellarium

 

What is a Planetarium Program?

A planetarium is a theatre built for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky. A classic planetarium accurately reproduces the night sky on a domed ceiling allowing the audience to see the sky from any place on Earth at any time. This was accomplished with a special projector and was controlled normally with an panel of dials and levers that would impress an airline pilot.

A planetarium can show an audience the night sky from any location on Earth. It can speed up time to show the motion of sky through the night, show the moon and planets, highlight the constellations, and show a myriad of other objects. A planetarium program does this on your desktop computer or smartphone.

 

Why Stellarium?

There are quite a few planetarium programs available, but a very good one is Stellarium and it's a free application funded by donations. For desktop computers, it's available on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. For smartphones, they have versions for Android and iOS. But almost all of the other programs have the same capabilities as Stellarium so don't think you have to get that particular program. One of the advanced functions of many of these programs is they can control a telescope, but this will depend on having a compatible GoTo telescope mount. A planetarium program is great for both beginners and experts, but we will concentrate on how it can help those starting out in astronomy.

 

Viewing the Sky / Learning the constellations

Note: this is not a "how to" guide on using Stellarium! We are simply showing some of it's capabilities, especially for those who are relatively new to astronomy.

When you open Stellarium by default it is going to show you the sky looking South from the default location at the current date and time. You'll want to change that location to one that's in the Stellarium directory that's relatively close to your actual location. (There is an extensive User's Guide that you can download from their website.) From there you can change the direction of your view, zoom in, zoom out, and modify the date and time.

What follows are various views of the winter sky looking directly south to show you the display possibilities.


Sky with no labeling.


Sky with the brightest stars labeled.


Sky with the constellation lines.


Sky with constellation lines and constellation labels.


Sky with the brightest stars, constellation lines, and constellation labels.


Sky with the brightest stars, constellation lines, constellation labels, and constellation art.

 

Alternate Constellation Lines

Another feature of Stellium is the use of alternate constellation lines. One change you might consider if you like the HA Rey constellation lines is to instruct the program to utilize them. They are used in the the above screen shot.

 

The 88 Constellations

Throughout the entire sky we recognize 88 constellations. But from a location such as Milwaukee you can only see about 60 of them. To see the ones hidden you need to travel south, the farther south the better.

Latin Name	English Name / Description	Abbr
Andromeda	Princess of Ethiopia	And
Antlia	Air pump	Ant
Apus	Bird of Paradise	Aps
Aquarius	Water bearer	Aqr
Aquila	Eagle	Aql
Ara	Altar	Ara
Aries	Ram	Ari
Auriga	Charioteer	Aur
Bootes	Herdsman	Boo
Caelum	Graving tool	Cae
Camelopardalis	Giraffe	Cam
Cancer	Crab	Cnc
Canes Venatici	Hunting dogs	CVn
Canis Major	Big dog	CMa
Canis Minor	Little dog	CMi
Capricornus	Sea goat	Cap
Carina	Keel of Argonauts' ship	Car
Cassiopeia	Queen of Ethiopia	Cas
Centaurus	Centaur	Cen
Cepheus	King of Ethiopia	Cep
Cetus	Sea monster (whale)	Cet
Chamaeleon	Chameleon	Cha
Circinus	Compasses	Cir
Columba	Dove	Col
Coma Berenices	Berenice's hair	Com
Corona Australis	Southern crown	CrA
Corona Borealis	Northern crown	CrB
Corvus	Crow	Cor
Crater	Cup	Crt
Crux	Cross	Cru
Cygnus	Swan	Cyg
Delphinus	Porpoise	Del
Dorado	Swordfish	Dor
Draco	Dragon	Dra
Equuleus	Little horse	Equ
Eridanus	River	Eri
Fornax	Furnace	For
Gemini	Twins	Gem
Grus	Crane	Gru
Hercules	Hercules, son of Zeus	Her
Horologium	Clock	Hor
Hydra	Sea serpent	Hya
Hydrus	Water snake	Hyi
Indus	Indian	Ind
Lacerta	Lizard	Lac
Leo	Lion	Leo
Leo Minor	Little lion	LMi
Lepus	Hare	Lep
Libra	Balance	Lib
Lupus	Wolf	Lup
Lynx	Lynx	Lyn
Lyra	Lyre or harp	Lyr
Mensa	Table mountain	Men
Microscopium	Microscope	Mic
Monoceros	Unicorn	Mon
Musca	Fly	Mus
Norma	Carpenter's Level	Nor
Octans	Octant	Oct
Ophiuchus	Holder of serpent	Oph
Orion	Orion, the hunter	Ori
Pavo	Peacock	Pav
Pegasus	Pegasus, the winged horse	Peg
Perseus	Perseus, hero who saved Andromeda	Per
Phoenix	Phoenix	Phe
Pictor	Easel	Pic
Pisces	Fishes	Psc
Piscis Austrinus	Southern fish	PsA
Puppis	Stern of the Argonauts' ship	Pup
Pyxis	Compass on the Argonauts' ship	Pyx
Reticulum	Net	Ret
Sagitta	Arrow	Sge
Sagittarius	Archer	Sgr
Scorpius	Scorpion	Sco
Sculptor	Sculptor's tools	Scl
Scutum	Shield	Sct
Serpens	Serpent	Ser
Sextans	Sextant	Sex
Taurus	Bull	Tau
Telescopium	Telescope	Tel
Triangulum	Triangle	Tri
Triangulum Australe	Southern triangle	TrA
Tucana	Toucan	Tuc
Ursa Major	Big bear	UMa
Ursa Minor	Little bear	UMi
Vela	Sail of the Argonauts' ship	Vel
Virgo	Virgin	Vir
Volans	Flying fish	Vol
Vulpecula	Fox	Vul

For a much greater understanding of the consellations, we have a whole section on our website dedicated to the topic called Stargazing. It contains a wealth of information for both beginners and those with more advanced knowledge. Click/tap here to go to that section.

 

Locating the Planets

A very great use of the program, especially for beginners, is seeing the location of the planets. The planets are always in motion so their position changes even on a daily basis.

 

Learning about the Celestial Sphere

Another great thing about a planetarium program is facilitating the learning of the celestial sphere. This topic is so important we will devote a whole web page to it. Click/tap here to go there.