Celestia – real-time 3D visualization of space

Celestia is a real-time 3D space simulation that lets you explore the universe from almost any viewpoint. Unlike conventional planetarium software, it does not restrict the observer to the surface of Earth.

You can move seamlessly from a spacecraft or planetary surface out through the Solar System, among the stars and beyond the Milky Way. Navigation uses a point-and-go approach together with continuous zooming across an enormous range of scales.

Celestia’s catalogues describe stars, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, spacecraft and deep-sky objects. The environment can also be extended with additional catalogues, textures, models and scripts.

This is free and open source software.

Key Features

• Explore space freely in three dimensions rather than from a fixed terrestrial viewpoint.
• Travel smoothly between planets, moons, stars, galaxies, spacecraft and other astronomical objects.
• Extensive star catalogue derived from Hipparcos data together with catalogues of Solar System and deep-sky objects.
• Display planetary orbits, trajectories, constellation lines and boundaries, object labels and surface locations.
• Adjust simulation time, run time forwards or backwards and observe astronomical events from different viewpoints.
• Render planetary atmospheres, clouds, rings, shadows, eclipses, night-side lighting and detailed surface textures.
• Show information about selected objects including distance, size, orbital data, spectral class and temperature where available.
• Reference marks can visualize directions, axes, velocity vectors and other spatial relationships around objects.
• Supports custom solar-system, star and deep-sky catalogues using SSC, STC and DSC files.
• Extend the simulation with high-resolution textures, 3D models and third-party add-ons.
• CEL and Lua-based CELX scripting support automated tours and more sophisticated simulations.
• Bookmarks and Celestia URLs make it possible to save or share particular locations, viewpoints and times.
• Capture screenshots of the rendered view.

Website: celestiaproject.space
Support:
Developer: Celestia Development Team
License: GNU General Public License v2.0

Celestia is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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