Stellarium type software

[Capt Slog]

I use Stellarium on my PC and i want to take it outside to use by my telescope. 

I don't have a laptop (or smartphone) but I do have an an old PC that I can make 'portable', however, that PC runs on windows XP.  

Can anyone recommend software that might run on WinXP and look a bit like stellarium, please?

 

[Corncrake]

Perhaps have a look at HNSKY, I dont know what level of windows it requires (but there is a Raspberry PI version if all else fails ! )

https://www.hnsky.org/software.htm

 

[Capt Slog]

Quote

 

1 hour ago, Corncrake said:

Perhaps have a look at HNSKY, I dont know what level of windows it requires (but there is a Raspberry PI version if all else fails ! )

https://www.hnsky.org/software.htm

Thank you!!

 

It looks a bit clunky in comparison to Stell, but this beggar can't be choosy, and at least it works.  I'll give it a go and see what it does.

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Capt Slog

[Spile]

I am not sure if this helps but I take screen shots from Stellarium and use those printed on A4 when outside. I know that is more for planning so may not be applicable for you. If I need to look something up at the eyepiece then I refer to SkEye or the Stellarium app.

[John]

If you search around the web there are older versions of Stellarium, such as 0.15, are still available which work with Windows XP.

There is also "Cartes du Ciel" which I think is XP compatible:

https://www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/start

 

 

 

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by John

[Cornelius Varley]

Cartes du Ciel en:start [Skychart] (ap-i.net) has lower system overheads and also can produce proper star charts.

[Capt Slog]

Thank you to the contributors above.  I'll have a look into those.  I do like stellarium, so a lower version might be nice if it works on my  old PC.

 

I was going to make a sort of carrier , but this afternoon, I had an idea.  I've installed the old PC, running HNSKY (at present) in my shed.  I still have to do a lot of tidying, but this is what I've got....

You can see the BACK of the monitor there, because the front is visble from outside, about 2 meters from where I usually set up my telescope.

I hung the mouse outside the window, and can use it on the side of the shed!  It took a little longer than I expected because when I came to look through the window, i found that it was made of a smoked perspex, so I had to remove that and fit glass instead

 

 

[Corncrake]

9 hours ago, Capt Slog said:

bit clunky

and  I did think about C du Ciel but deffo not " a bit like stellarium, please" ! with a very steep learning curve

I had another thought: linux people speak highly of KStars (it is so long ago that I did that I cant remember !) and you could put a usb Live Linux on it if you didnt want to ditch XP

To my surprise just now I see it is cross-platform, but says win 7 8 10, so ymmv if they really do mean to exclude XP ?

"I hung the mouse outside the window, and can use it on the side of the shed!"

Ingenious, I love it !! and no cables to trip over neither

Only one point to quibble : I think you got the torch the wrong side 🤣 I used to have a rechargeable just like that.

Good luck.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Corncrake

[Corncrake]

two posts recombined above !

Edited April 8, 2021 by Corncrake

[Cosmic Geoff]

You do not have to stick with the Windows XP, which is quite hard to maintain now.  You could make the PC dual boot with Linux if you do not want to scrap the XP altogether.  I am not 100% sure, but I think you can get Stellarium for Linux.  I did discover that the  newer versions of Stellarium will not work on XP.

If you feel like an upgrade, the nation is awash with ex-business PCs and laptops which can be had from dealers at reasonable prices and already loaded with fresh installations of Windows 7 or Windows 10.

[Capt Slog]

1 hour ago, Corncrake said:

 

Only one point to quibble : I think you got the torch the wrong side 🤣I used to have a rechargeable just like that.

Good luck.

 

 

So did I! that one is broken and I haven't found why yet.

@Brown Dwarf.  I expect that even with Linux, the PC itself would be unable to cope.  Unless of course, that operating system is less hungry than Windows.

 

Another edit to add....

 I've just been out in the dark and the screen works a treat.  Nicely visible through the window, so no more treks into the house every few minutes during my observing sessions.  (I suppose i really should have printed stuff out before now, but I've not found looking at pieces of paper very easy)

Edited April 8, 2021 by Capt Slog

[Corncrake]

1 hour ago, Capt Slog said:

 I've just been out in the dark and the screen works a treat.

Excellent!

Re.linux. you sound well sorted now, but if you want to pick up on Linux later then a couple of things :

it comes in many flavours, some tiny and perfect for resurrecting elderly machines, to big packages with all sorts of software pre-loaded.

and note the bit I said about Live Linux, you put it on a USB stick (for example ), boot from that, and can try it out from there without needing to install dual-boot or other things that would mess with your main drive. Bit of a learning curve though !

 

[Capt Slog]

9 hours ago, Corncrake said:

Excellent!

Re.linux. you sound well sorted now, but if you want to pick up on Linux later then a couple of things :

it comes in many flavours, some tiny and perfect for resurrecting elderly machines, to big packages with all sorts of software pre-loaded.

and note the bit I said about Live Linux, you put it on a USB stick (for example ), boot from that, and can try it out from there without needing to install dual-boot or other things that would mess with your main drive. Bit of a learning curve though !

 

Thanks.  I'll have a look.  Linux is an area I'm not familiar with (I'll admit that's one of many    ).  I was once shown how to dual boot, but I've forgotten it now.

However, my son is a programmer/software engineer, I'll get him to have a go with my machine.

[Spile]

Definitely "Thinking outside the box"

Congratulations.

[Capt Slog]

Update.

It took a bit of finding and quite a few failed attempts at installing incompatible software, but I've eventually found a copy of Stellarium that will run on the aging XP machine.  Version 12.9 is that one that's managed to load and it looks okay..  There are superficial differences from what I have been using, it doesn't have the same 'polish' but that's to be expected.  I'm also running it without a keyboard, so as yet I can't input information for 'my telescope' and oculars.

After a very short time trying to use the mouse vertically, it quickly became obvious that i would be on my way to carpel tunnel problems, so I made a folding shelf out of half an old breadboard I had lying around...

 

...it made my son laugh.