Latest Stellarium not as good!

[philsail1]

Dear All,

I downloaded the latest version of "Stellarium" over Christmas. I personally found it not as good - or easy to use - as the first version I initally downloaded a year ago.

I found it that dissapointing (and frustrating) that I've erased it from my computer.

Does anyone know of any other "simple" sky star/planet programs that would just show me the basics of the night sky - in particular the positions of the planets at any time of day or night?

Thanks,

philsail1

[MikeP]

Phil,

Have you tried Cartes du Ceil? http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/

Mike

[tooth_dr]

I can vouch for Cartes de Ceil. I tried both out yesterday, and I found Stellarium slower to run and less user friendly. CDC FTW :hello1:

Adam

[Doc]

Cartes du ceil for me to.

Awesome software.

[Psychobilly]

I pref V9 to V10 of Stellarium as well... I still use it for "re-orienting" myself when you get a break after weeks of not seeing a star in the sky.

I suppose choice of an alternative would really depnd on personal preference for the display style and what your looking to achiwve with the software...

I don't use stellarium for anything other than a quick look and find its atmosphere effects simulation very useful... they need to beef up the cloud engine though

Billy...

Billy...

[dpastern]

I'd usually recommend the excellent kstars:

http://edu.kde.org/kstars/

But it is generally designed to runon GNU/Linux. My advice is:

1) download the free vmplayer

2) head to vmplanet.net

download a Linux vm, I'd recommend Debian 5 "lenny" RC1 - it's a big download, but well worth it imho.

3) load vm into the vmplayer

4) download and install kde, including kstars. Something like:

apt-get install kstars

should do the trick.

5) If you're new to Linux and commands etc, pm me and I'll walk you through on how to do it.

Having a vm can be handy, very handy, especially if it's Linux on a Windows platform.

Dave

edit: You can try KDE for Windows, including kstars:

http://www.screenshots-archive.com/kde-windows-kstars

Remember, KDE is a desktop environment originally designed for Linux/BSD/UNIX environments. It's not hard to use and get used to and in many ways is far better than what Windows offers you for a desktop environment ;-)

[PhillyDee]

How about this:

http://www.phillydee.me.uk/astro/stellarium-0.9.0.exe

The old version of Stellarium I have just hosted on my webserver . . . Im the sort of person who stores everything I download in case I need it again.

[philsail1]

Thanks Mike, Adam and Doc! I downloaded "Cartes-du-Ceil" and tried it. It is a very versatile program, and at 12.5MB it doesn't take up much hard drive. I was all prepared to learn how to use, when along came "Psychobilly" to wet my appetite with a preference for "stellarium." Well, when "phillydee" made his offer of "stallarium" 0.9 version. I downloaded this and I am now back in Astro Heaven!!

Even though Stellarium takes 35MB, I do like the views it gives of the night sky.

(Thanks also to "Dpastern" for your suggestion of K/Stars. I haven't tried this one, so I'll have a look at it in the week).

Regards.

philsail1

[johno1]

Thanks for the copy mike ,found the older copy better ,ceil is a good program but not as easy to use for orientation on the laptop , at least not with DSO s

but the ceil does give you the RA/DEC for setting circles.

[scotastro]

A friend e-mailed to say her computer crashes when running latest Stellarium.

Anyone had similar problems?

Mike

[ringz]

Mike,

The latest version runs fine on my computer, and I have to say has fewer software bugs. I know that the user interface is different but it didn't take long for me to get used to it.

--

Martyn

[philsail1]

Hi Martyn,

The latest "Stellarium" ran OK on my old DELL Inspiron Laptop, but I couldn't get used to the new "presentation" (The way the tools strip kept on popping up and down out of sight, and the horizon views were unusual - and appeared distorted to me).

I'm more than happy to have the 9.0 version back!.

Regards,

philsail1

[Moonhawk]

I personally use Cartes Du Ciel and Winstars

http://www.winstars.net/english/

[artyfarty]

A friend e-mailed to say her computer crashes when running latest Stellarium.

I found this was happening to me also when using my work laptop (Windows Vista ) but I use Ubuntu (free Linux OS strongly recommend it BTW) on my laptop as a second OS. Ubuntu can be installed with ver 0.9 and KStars which was already mentioned above and is a very good application.

[burningbarricade]

I've only just got a scope and I downloaded stellarium around christmas time. Never used anything like it before and found it to be just fantastic. I wonder what could be so good about the previous version compared to the new one? I'll give version 9 a go - cheers phillydee - but just thought I should defend v10.

[russ]

I'll put in a vote for v10 too. I prefer the interface, it's speedy on my desktop PC and runs without fault in both XP and Vista.

Also they have changed the date/time control so that when scrolling though time it automatically flips to the next day/hour/minute. V9 never moved on.....highly annoying.

I had Cartes Du Ciel on my old Dell laptop because it was the only thing it could run. Cartes Du Ciel is good but much prefer the eye candy, controls and interface of Stellarium.

[lunator]

I'm a CDC fan

I have been speaking to patrick and he wants people to download v3.

It is still classified as a beta version but it is pretty much ready to use.

He would be interested in any feedback.

Cheers

Ian

[russ]

Many thanks for the heads up. Just downloaded v3 beta, will give it a try over lunch.

[dave1978]

I also removed V10 after about 20 minutes of messing around and went back to V9, it just looks and feels better.

[ash]

Stellarium V10 for me too runs fine on both the lappy and desk top (both vista machines)

As rus says the eyecandy is prefared to CDC and i seem to oriantate myself better with stellarium

Andy