Planetarium Software and Star Atlases
Planetarium Software
| Excellent, moderately-priced planetarium software that can do just about anything you need: | Sky Safari |
| Starry Night | |
| There also some examples of very good free planetarium software: Stellarium has a well-structured appearance and interface: it is widely used. Cartes du Ciel (Skychart) is a very nicely constructed planetarium program for a wide range of platforms, including Windows and Mac. Hallo Northern Sky (for Windows and Linux) is an advanced program that uses an impressive range of star catalogs. With many advanced features, it is also highly regarded. |
Stellarium |
| Cartes du Ciel (Skychart) | |
| Hallo Northern Sky | |
| Free sky-imagery software: | Aladin Sky Atlas |
Star Atlases
There are many excellent star atlases and stargazing books out there. In some cases, the distinction between the two is blurred. If you’re looking for guides to celestial objects, make sure to check out our list of suggested books for further reading.
| An atlas to use with binoculars or a small telescope. Shows stars to magnitude 6.5 and a good selection of deep-sky objects. | W. Tirion: The Cambridge Star Atlas |
| A pair of atlases with the same background star map (to mag. 7.5) but intended for very different uses: one includes Herschel objects to mag. 12.5 and the other guides you to double stars (as well as showing many deep-sky objects). | B. MacEvoy and W. Tirion: The Cambridge Double Star Atlas |
| J. Mullaney and W. Tirion: The Cambridge Atlas of Herschel Objects | |
| A spiral-bound laminated atlas to mag. 8.5: an old favorite. | W. Tirion and R.W. Sinnott: Sky Atlas 2000.0 |
| An excellent atlas in bound book form with stars to mag. 9.75 and tens of thousands of deep-sky objects. | W. Tirion, B. Rappaport, and W. Remaklus: Uranometria 2000.0 |
| An innovative atlas with over 200,000 stars (to mag. 9.5), plus over 14,000 deep-sky objects labelled both by type of object and by visibility (do you need a 4”, 8”, 12”, or larger telescope?). The field edition is a bit pricey, but excellent. | R. Stoyan and S. Schurig: Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas |
| A wonderful atlas that makes it easy to identify even small features on the Moon. Unfortunately, this book is out of print, but if you can find a copy it’s a great guide to observing the Moon. | A. Rükl: Atlas of the Moon |
| A very nice hybrid atlas, with 20 generalized maps of broad regions of the sky (to mag. 6.5) that are useful for a quick reference and a useful set of 16 regional Moon maps. Best of all is the handy 154 pages of mag. 7.5 constellation star charts with all the brightest and best deep-sky objects and double stars – great for a first exploration of any part of the sky. | S. Dunlop: Collins Atlas of the Night Sky |
| A useful constellation-by-constellation compilation of the best deep sky objects and double stars, with star-hopping finder charts. | R. B. Thompson and B. F. Thompson: Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders |