Stellarium

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__ ** Description ** __ Did you ever wonder what the sky looked like when you were born? Or which constellations will be visible in the night?

Stellarium is a free open source software that transforms your computer into a 3D planetarium and renders realistic skies in real time. Go forward or back in time to view the sky anywhere on Earth (image on left shows the Honolulu night sky at a future date, Christmas Eve 2013). Stellarium shows what is seen with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It draws constellations and simulates meteor showers and solar or lunar eclipses. Users can zoom in and out of the night sky; track a planet's orbit; or see how Jupiter's moon orbit around the planet.

Professional and amateur astronomers use Stellarium to provide accurate data through its extensive catalog of stars, planets, satellites, constellations, and images of nebulae. It is used in education (K-12 and higher education) and in planetarium shows.

Stellarium can be installed on Windows, Macintosh, Ubuntu, and Linux operating systems. Stellarium mobile runs on Android, iOS, and Nokia devices.

Under the terms of the open source licensing, volunteer developers write code to improve Stellarium. =**__ History __**= Authored by __ Fabien Chéreau __, Stellarium’s initial release was in 2001 with the stable version release in May 2004. In 2006, Stellarium won the gold award in education from the __ Les Trophees du Libre __ and also the SourceForge.net Project of the Month in May.

In 2010, Fabien Chéreau developed Stellarium-Mobile for Maemo/Nokia N900 and won the 2010 Nokia’s Best application for Nokia N900. __ Noctua Software Ltd, __ founded by Fabien Chéreau and Guillaume Chéreau, maintains and releases Stellarium mobile for Android, iOS, and Nokia versions. Although the desktop version of Stellarium is free, the cost for the mobile version ranges between $1.99 - $2.99.

**__ Forks __**
In December 2009, co-developer, Digitalis Education Solutions, Inc launched the open source project, __ Nightshade __, which is a __ fork __ of the Stellarium project.

=**__ Impact on Teaching and Learning __**=

**__ K-12 __**
Founded in 2003, Digitalis Education Solutions, Inc.’s __ Open Astronomy Curricula __ creats K-12 lesson plans to teach astronomy. Through the use of Stellarium and the Digitarium Alpha portable digital planetarium projector, students learn about the planets, sky, solar system, objects in space, phases of the moon, stellar navigation, solstice/equinox, and much more.

**__ Around the world __**
In Africa, there is a shortage in students graduating in science and math courses that lead into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers. Through the Global Hands-On Universe (GHOU), teachers are brought to countries around the world to help inspire students in science. Also, astronomy is a young science where a few undergraduate programs are under 4 years old. Susan Murabana, who is working to expand GHOU in Africa, uses Stellarium as a tool to motivate students to learn more about astronomy.

Stellarium is used to encourage high school students in years 11 and 12 to study science in Australia. The software is a good tool for students to learn constellations and basic celestial coordinates. An Archaeo-Astronomy program in the Summer of 2009 partnered college and gifted and talented students to encourage learning outside the traditional classroom. The program used teacher focused sessions, activities, outdoor visits, and Stellarium (see image on the right) as a way to answer what is archaeo-astronomy and explore historic landscapes. On the final day of the program, students presented their findings using PowerPoint slides, theatre performance, photographs, and poetry; thus increasing their self-confidence. After the program ended, several students engaged in an intensive learning and teaching of the Stellarium program. They developed their own Continuing Personal Development activity to introduce teachers to Stellarium and presented this activity at the Annual Association for Science Education conference in 2010.

The Euro VO-AIDA project expands the benefit of the Virtual Observatory to students and teachers. Developed in two one-year cycles, the project initially used Stellarium, another software (Aladin), and the first set of use cases to study more than 200 hours in selected middle- and high-schools. The second study focused on how teachers were able to use the products autonomously. With the findings and suggestions, the project released their products to the public.

**__ Higher Education __**
Most textbooks are often published with an outdated version of the referenced software. This often means an increased cost to students and colleges. To combat this issue, the faculty at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas created the Distant Nature activities. Distant Nature designs two semesters worth of lab activities using Stellarium to provide students with experience in planetarium programs.

Researchers at Thaksin University studied pre-service teachers’ conceptual understand of basic astronomy concepts. By using Stellarium in an inquiry method, pre-service teachers were able to understand abstract content and overcome misconceptions in astronomy. In addition, pre-service teachers using the exact method of teaching would not only further their understanding of science and astronomy but also give them an insight on students’ ideas.

Lastly, the ability to move through time and space with ease is a reason why Stellarium is a good tool for astronomy and planetary astronomy educators.

// Sample Lab Exercises //
The __ AIMS Education Foundation __ created how-to videos and activity sheets to use Stellarium as a free planetarium software for the classroom. The King’s Centre for Visualization in Science uses Stellarium as part of their Astronomy 200 lab exercises. =__** Real-World Application **__=
 * [[image:Screen Shot 2013-09-29 at 2.30.11 PM.png link="@http://www.kcvs.ca/martin/astro/course/lab/labexercises/kepler.pdf"]] || [[image:Screen Shot 2013-09-29 at 6.44.24 PM.png link="@http://www.kcvs.ca/martin/astro/course/lab/labexercises/kepler.pdf"]] ||

__** Telescopes **__
Astronomers in China found a way to use a Stellarium module to control telescopes. A point positioned in the sky is marked in the Stellarium rendered sky. Then when a new point is marked in the Stellarium sky, the Stellarium module will send commands to the telescope and point the telescope at the new marked point. This video shows how to configure Stellarium to control a telescope. media type="custom" key="23956992" align="center"

**__ Astronomy Night in Washington, DC __**
The Office of Science and Technology Policy used Stellarium to simulate the night sky in Washington, DC on July 15, 2010 at 9:30 pm for “Astronomy Night on the National Mall.” This event was part of the Obama Administration’s effort to inspire boys and girls in STEM.

**__ Planetariums __**
The MOST Museum in Syracuse, New York uses Stellarium for their //Seasonal Sky// show on Saturdays and Sundays. Planetariums can use Stellarium in various ways as a projection software. media type="custom" key="23956994" align="center" Stellarium’s wiki provides instructions in setting up a dome and a real video planetarium projector using the Fisheye Projection =**__ Examples __**= The author used Apple's QuickTime X to screen capture a Stellarim time elapsed lunar eclipse as seen from the Honolulu skies on August 27-28, 2007. media type="custom" key="23957004" align="center"

Tutorials
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**Screen shots**
The author captured a few screen shots of the Stellarium software.

Changing the Starlore option to other cultures and viewing the star names. The stars with their Polynesian names. The night sky with planets, stars and constellations identified. Zooming in on Orion's nebulae Planet's orbit shown =**__ Alternative Software __**= Cartes du Ciel Celestia Digital Universe Atlas Google Sky Hallo Northern Sky (HN Sky) KStars NASA World Wind RedShift Skyglobe Starry Night TheSky Universe Sandbox WinStars WorldWide Telescope XEphem

[Baltier2705]. (2012, April 26). Stellarium - Controlling your Telescope with Stellarium - Celestron 6/8SE [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTeCfQDrZJ0
 * __ References __**

Benge, R. D., & Tuttle, S. R. (2012, January). Astronomy Student Activities Using Stellarium Software. In American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts# 219 (Vol. 219).

Brown, D., Neale, N., & Francis, R. (2010). Peak into the Past-An Archaeo-Astronomy Summer School. //arXiv preprint arXiv:1009.5515//.

Brown, D., Francis, R., & Alder, A. (2010). The Archaeo-Astronomy Project--Supporting the Outdoor Classroom. arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.0331.

Chen, J., Meng, L., Wang, X., & Wang, C. (2011, January). An integrated system for astronomical telescope based on stellarium. In Advanced Computer Control (ICACC), 2011 3rd International Conference on (pp. 431-434). IEEE.

Connors, M. G., & Martin, B. (2009, December). Stellarium as an Educational Resource in Planetary Astronomy. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 1, p. 08).

Cummins, K. (2011, September 13). Stellarium Tutorial [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7awF5xYtEQ

Digitalis Education Solutions, Inc. (2005). Stellarium Desktop Planetarium Software Makes Astronomy Accessible to Anyone [Press release]. Retrieved from http://digitaliseducation.com/press-20050911.html

Digitalis Education Solutions, Inc. (2009). Nightshade Open Source Planetarium Project Launched [Press release]. Retrieved from http://digitaliseducation.com/press-20091230.html

Goodman, A. A., Udomprasert, P. S., Kent, B., Sathiapal, H., & Smareglia, R. (2010). Astronomy Visualization for Education and Outreach. Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XX.

How to plan an observing session with Stellarium. (n. d.). Retrieved from http://lcogt.net/education/article/how-plan-observing-session-stellarium

Hughes, S. W. (2008). Stellarium–a valuable resource for teaching astronomy in the classroom and beyond. Science Education News (SEN), 57(2), 83-86.

Khongpugdee, S., & Suppagon, K. Effects of Teaching Astronomy Based on Inquiry Method Using Stellarium Program. Editorial Board Members, 175.

Ma, S. (2013, September 29). lunar eclipse [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjUFJScMo5M

Ndlovu, M. C. (2011). Re-envisioning the scholarship of engagement: lessons from a university-school partnership project for mathematics and science teaching. South African Journal of Higher Education, 27(7), 1397-1415.

Newswire. (2011). BERKELEY LAB-FOUNDED PROGRAM BRINGS ASTRONOMY TO AFRICA [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.lexisnexis.com.eres.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/?verb=sr&csi=8058&sr=HLEAD (BERKELEY%20LA B- FOUNDED%20PROGRAM%20BRINGS%20ASTRONOMY%20TO%20AFRICA)%20AND%20DATE%20IS%202011-11-9

Newswire. (2010). OSTP TO CO-HOST "ASTRONOMY NIGHT ON THE NATIONAL MALL" [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.lexisnexis.com.eres.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/?verb=sr&csi=8058&sr=HLEAD(OSTP+TO+CO-HOST+%22ASTRONOMY+NIGHT+ON+THE+NATIONAL+MALL%22)%2BAND%2BDATE%2BIS%2B2010-07-3

Stellarium. (n. d.). Retrieved from https://amser.org/r9495

[VirualSoftSri]. (2010, August 14). Stellarium Console - A new way to use Stellarium in a planetarium [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1YiBz7aY2c

Wilson, J. (2013, July 24). Stellarium tutorial [Video file]. Retrieved from http://blog.aimsedu.org/2013/07/24/stellarium-a-free-planetarium-for-your-science-classroom/

Wilson, J. (2013, September 18). Stellarium Orrery [Video file]. Retrieved from http://blog.aimsedu.org/2013/09/18/using-stellarium-to-model-planetary-motion/

** External Links **
@http://www.stellarium.org/ @http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Susan Ma is enrolled at the University of Hawaii in the ETEC Masters Program. She works as an IT Specialist for the Colleges of Arts and Sciences Student Academic Services ( CASSAS )
 * __ About Author __ **