KStars

Last updated
KStars
Developer(s) KDE developers
Stable release
3.6.8 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 3 December 2023;18 days ago (3 December 2023)
Repository
Operating system Unix-like, Windows, Android
Platform KDE
Type Educational software
License GPLv2 [2]
Website edu.kde.org/kstars/

KStars is a free and open-source planetarium program built using the KDE Frameworks. It is available for Linux, BSD, macOS, and Microsoft Windows. A light version of KStars is available for Android devices. It provides an accurate graphical representation of the night sky, from any location on Earth, at any date and time. The display includes up to 100 million stars (with additional addons), 13,000 deep sky objects, constellations from different cultures, all 8 planets, the Sun and Moon, and thousands of comets, asteroids, satellites, and supernovae. It has features to appeal to users of all levels, from informative hypertext articles about astronomy, to robust control of telescopes and CCD cameras, and logging of observations of specific objects.

Contents

KStars supports adjustable simulation speeds in order to view phenomena that happen over long timescales. For astronomical calculations, Astrocalculator can be used to predict conjunctions, lunar eclipses, and perform many common astronomical calculations. The following tools are included:

KStars has been packaged by many Linux/BSD distributions, including Red Hat Linux, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux, and Debian. Some distributions package KStars as a separate application, some just provide a kdeedu package, which includes KStars. KStars is distributed with the KDE Software Compilation as part of the kdeedu "Edutainment" module.

KStars participated in Google Summer of Code in 2008, [4] 2009, [5] 2010, [6] 2011 [7] 2012, [8] 2015 [9] and 2016. [10] It has also participated in the first run of ESA's Summer of Code in Space in 2011. [11]

It has been identified as one of the three best "Linux stargazing apps" in a Linux.com review. [12]

See also

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References

  1. Jasem Mutlaq (3 December 2023). "KStars 3.6.8 is Released" . Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  2. "KDE QuickGit". kstars.git. Archived from the original on 2016-06-25. Retrieved 2016-09-18.
  3. "HiPS – Hierarchical Progressive Survey".
  4. List of 2008's successful participants Archived 2011-12-23 at the Wayback Machine , Google Summer of Code, KML file
  5. Google Summer of Code 2009 Accepted Projects Archived 2011-04-01 at the Wayback Machine , accessed 2011-04-23
  6. Google Summer of Code 2010 Accepted Projects Archived 2011-04-01 at the Wayback Machine , accessed 2011-04-23
  7. "GSoC 2011 – Accepted Projects". Google, Inc. Retrieved 23 June 2012.
  8. "GSoC 2012 – Accepted Projects". Google, Inc. Retrieved 23 June 2012.
  9. "GSoC 2015 – Accepted Projects". Google, Inc. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  10. "GSoC 2016 – Accepted Projects". Google, Inc. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
  11. Selected mentoring organizations Archived 2011-07-23 at the Wayback Machine , ESA Summer of Code in Space 2011. Accessed 2011-07-29.
  12. "Explore the Universe: The Three Best Linux Stargazing Apps". Archived from the original on 2012-09-08. Retrieved 2011-07-29.