Should you want a past or future peek at the sky, the control panel lets you set whatever date and time you wish.Īmong Stellarium’s more useful features is a zoom mode that lets the user home in on a solar system target or deep-sky object to simulate binocular and (with even more zoom) telescope views. Leave it running for any length of time, and the stars will slowly drift across the computer screen. Boot it up, and it’s already set for the current date and time. Stellarium runs in real time, even when not in use. The only unrealistic feature about the Stellarium sky is that it never gets cloudy! Want to bring your backyard indoors? Get the stars to twinkle (yes, Stellarium offers that option), add your own landscape (yup, it lets you do that, too), and the view approaches what you’d see if you stepped outside. It produces a stunning desktop image of the night sky perched atop a realistic landscape. For about $20, you can buy a mint-condition edition of the book from Amazon or a similar Internet outlet.Ĭreated in large part by the French programmer Fabien Chéreau, Stellarium (is the ultimate in free planetarium software. Alas, there is one drawback to TUBA: It’s only available in PC format.īy the way, if you don’t already own a copy of Touring the Universe through Binoculars, I urge you to pick one up. If you’re a techno-dope like me, you can always download a five-page help file. The software allows each chart to be tailor-made in accordance with the user’s specific need.īecause it’s a user-friendly program, TUBA is well suited to the novice. TUBA could be described as a desktop planetarium, but its primary function is to produce printable sky charts. These parameters make TUBA useful not only for the binocular owner, but also for the small-scope enthusiast. It includes all of the 1,100 deep-sky objects described in the book and plots stars down to 11th magnitude. The Touring the Universe through Binoculars Atlas (TUBA, is a collaborative effort by Phil Harrington and Dean Williams designed to complement Harrington’s Touring the Universe through Binoculars (John Wiley and Sons, 1990). Are you ready for more? Great, because this month we’re going to check out a pair of downloads that also cost zip, zilch, zero! This past January, I showcased a handful of Internet astro-freebies.
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