SkyViewer is an OpenGL based program to display HEALPix-based skymaps, saved in FITS format files.
The loaded skymaps can be viewed either on a 3D sphere or as a Mollweide projection. In either case, realtime panning and zooming are supported, along with rotations for the 3D sphere view, assuming you have a strong enough graphics card.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Real time rotation, zooming, and panning of map.
- Choice of 3D sphere or 2D Mollweide display.
- Pixel texture aligns with HEALPix pixel boundaries.
- Select pixel and get information for the pixel.
- Adjustable mapping from pixel value to color.
- View Temperature, Polarization or Nobs fields.
- View polarization direction vectors.
- Save screen shots to image file.
- Contextual help.
- Cross-platform support – runs under Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Website: lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov
Support: GitHub Code Repository
Developer: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
License: BSD License
SkyViewer is written in C++. Learn C++ 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.
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