When in the summer, at night, you look at the clear and clear sky from a non-city point of view, perhaps from the beach or from a more isolated place, you see how many stars there are. Maybe while staring at the night sky you end up wondering what the names of the stars or constellations are.
The curiosity to know everything about the stars and the names of all the constellations visible in the firmament of the sky, can be satisfied thanks to a fantastic opensource program for all computers called Stellarium .
Stellarium can be downloaded for free for Windows, Mac and Linux PCs and is a free, non-profit software.
Stellarium is also a web application published on the Stellarium-web.org site
Installation is very simple and the program, even in Italian, can be launched through the program menu.
When you start Stellarium, you see the sky in full screen, as it really is now, on the location above Paris.
The program shows the current situation so if it is daytime, you will see the sky by day, if instead it is evening you will see the starry sky.
By setting a city like Rome and Milan, you can look at the starry sky on the screen, as it really is if you look up into the sky in a fairly dark country place.
To set the actual current position, move the mouse to the bottom left of the screen and press the highest button, that of the position window.
You can choose the nearest city or enter the precise coordinates in degrees minutes and seconds.
On Google you can find the service to calculate the coordinates of your geographical position.
The settings relating to the operation of the program are in the left pane, while the quick viewing options are at the bottom.
The view moves with the mouse and from the clock button in the left menu you can change the day and time to see how the constellations rotate (or rather how the Earth rotates in space).
In the options below you can enable the visualizations of the constellation lines, the names and the artistic figures that draw the stars .
You can enable the grid, you can hide the view of the weather conditions and you can hide the equator which is equivalent to removing the ground under your feet in the view to be able to look at the stars even in the opposite hemisphere.
The options on the left include the entire configuration set of the program and all the menus are absolutely clear also because they are written in Italian.
Using the mouse, keeping the left button pressed, you can move the virtual telescope while with the wheel you can zoom in on the sky and enlarge celestial bodies, planets and stars.
Clicking on a star opens a box with details about that star .
If you are using the current time, this information changes according to the time and updates automatically, in particular the distance in light-years from the Earth (from your position) to that star.
The main functions of Stellarium can be used by children and adults without difficulty to explore the sky like a telescope.
Among the additional features it is possible to install new landscapes to replace the default green field and you can also look at the sky and the stars with the names and traditions of ancient peoples (with the names given to the stars by ancient Egyptians, Aztecs, Polynesians, Laplanders etc).
Stellarium is a program that can be expanded with different plug-ins (visible in the configuration menu) including a solar system editor to add asteroids and comets to Stellarium, to search an online database and also to set a different time zone .
Stellarium is a wonderful, high quality program to find out where the stars are and their names with all the information on the constellations .
In terms of graphic quality, layout and customization capabilities, Stellarium has become the top of the programs for exploring space and virtual 3D telescopes .
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