Stellarium 25.2 / 1.2 – Free 3D Planetarium

3D Space & Visualization Tools – Planetarium, OpenGL, Rendering, Telescope Apps for All OS

2025-06-24

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Stellarium is a free, open-source planetarium for your computer that renders photo-realistic 3D skies in real time using OpenGL. It displays a realistic 3D sky just as you’d observe it with the naked eye, binoculars, or a telescope.

This astronomy app displays CELESTIAL BODIES (stars, planets, nebulae) and TERRESTRIAL FEATURES (landscapes, atmospheres), with functionality to DOWNLOAD ADDITIONAL SOLAR SYSTEM OBJECTS from supported online sources.

You can add deep sky objects, landscapes, constellation images, and scripts. The plugin system adds artificial satellites, ocular simulation, telescope configuration, and more.

This software is available for Linux, Unix, Windows, macOS, and Android. It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.

Features:

sky

default catalog of over 600,000 stars
Further catalogs with more than 177 million stars
default catalog of over 80,000 deep-sky objects
Further catalog with more than 1 million deep-sky objects
asterisms and illustrations of the constellations
constellations for 20+ completely different cultures
Images of nebulae (complete Messier catalog)
realistic Milky Way
very realistic atmosphere, sunrise, and sunset
The planets and their satellites

interface

a robust zoom
time control
multilingual interface
The fisheye projection for planetarium domes
Spheric mirror projection for your low-cost dome
The all-new graphical interface and in-depth keyboard control
telescope control

visualization

equatorial and azimuthal grids
star twinkling
shooting stars
tails of comets
Iridium flares simulation
eclipse simulation
Supernovae and novae simulation
3D sceneries
Skinnable landscapes, now with spherical panorama projection

customizability

plugin system including artificial satellites, ocular simulation, telescope configuration, and more
ability to add new solar system objects from online resources…
Add your deep-sky objects, landscapes, constellation images, scripts…

Changes in Stellarium 25.2 :

Many changes in support of sky cultures
Added 2 new plugins: Mosaic Camera and Custom Nebula Textures
Many improvements in Core
Updates in sky cultures (include new ones)

Changes in version 1.2 :

New projection: Equirectangular (fills the screen)
Improved rendering of the Milky Way, Zodiacal Light, and landscapes
Improved rendering of the Moon
Improved HiDPI behavior
Use Noto as the default font
Added Modern (IAU), Tikuna, and Seri sky cultures
Added Chinese and Bahai calendars (Calendars plugin)

System Requirements:

minimal

Linux/Unix; Windows 7 and above; macOS 10.15 and above
3D graphics card that supports OpenGL 2.1 and GLSL 1.3 or OpenGL ES 2.0
512 MiB RAM
600 MiB on disk
Keyboard
Mouse, Touchpad, or similar pointing device