SkyChart lets users draw sky charts, making use of the data in 16 catalogs of stars and nebulae. In addition the position of planets, asteroids and comets are shown.
The purpose of this program is to prepare different sky maps for a particular observation. A large number of parameters help you to choose specifically or automatically which catalogs to use, the colour and the dimension of stars and nebulae, the representation of planets, the display of labels and coordinate grids, the superposition of pictures, the condition of visibility and more.
All these features make this celestial atlas more complete than a conventional planetarium.
Key Features
- Maps out and labels most of the constellations, planets, and objects visible with a telescope.
- 2.8 million world cities database.
- PGC/LEDA with 5 million galaxies.
- Galactic and Ecliptic chart projection.
- Superimpose images over digitzed sky survey charts.
- Galactic and Ecliptic chart projection.
- Telescope tracking using INDI. Any telescope model supported by INDI will work with Cartes du Ciel / SkyChart.
- Observatory database.
- TCP/IP server capability.
- Online pictures.
- CatGen, a Catalog build tool.
- Display a picture for the horizon panorama.
- Uses the SQLite database.
- Support for GAIA DR1 – consisting of astrometry and photometry for over 1 billion sources brighter than magnitude 20.7 in the white-light photometric band G of Gaia. The Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) processed the raw measurements collected with the Gaia instruments during the first 14 months of the mission, and turned these into an astrometric and photometric catalogue.
- Support for GAIA DR2 – consisting of astrometry, photometry, radial velocities, astrophysical parameters and variability information for about 1.7 billion sources brighter than magnitude 21.
- Cross-platform support – available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD operating systems.
- Internationalization support – Catalan, Dutch, English, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
Website: www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/start
Support: Documentation, FAQ
Developer: Patrick Chevalley
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
Skychart is written in Object Pascal. Learn Pascal with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Astronomy Software | |
|---|---|
| Stellarium | A virtual planetarium |
| Gaia Sky | Astronomy visualization desktop and VR program |
| Celestia | Real-time space simulation |
| AstroImageJ | Tool for astronomical image analysis and precise photometry |
| Skychart | Prepare different sky maps for a particular observation |
| KStars | Desktop planetarium for KDE |
| OpenSpace | Interactive data visualization software |
| Aladin Desktop | Interactive sky atlas |
| Virtual Moon Atlas | Real-time moon observation |
| Ginga | FITS image viewer and toolkit |
| Digital Universe Atlas | Standalone 4-dimensional space visualization application |
| XEphem | Motif based ephemeris and planetarium program |
| mars-sim | General purpose simulator |
| Cosmonium | 3D astronomy and space exploration program |
| Tenmon | FITS and XISF image viewer, converter and indexer |
| Kosmorro | Calculate your ephemerides |
| Astra | Observatory control system |
| astroterm | Terminal-based star map |
| Skyviewer | Displays HEALPix-based skymaps |
| skyterm | Terminal-based astronomy program |
| ORSA | Framework for celestial mechanics investigations |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |