If you place the mouse cursor over Saturn and click, information about this planet is displayed in a box at the top left corner of the screen.Ī lot of information about Saturn is displayed but what you need is the Az/Alt numbers. What is highlighted is the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn. The screen shot above is a screen capture of what Stellarium will display on Septemaround 10 p.m. You can also zoom in to see more details of the stars or planets. Drag the cursor up or down and the sky simulation will show you higher elevations, until you are looking at the sky directly overhead. With your cursor movement right or left you can move the sky view east or west a full 360 degrees to back to the starting point. The sky above is then rendered on the screen. To use Stellarium for stargazing you must enter the close approximation of where you are and the date and time. To learn more about using a cell phone adapter with binoculars here’s a link about the Best Binocular Accessories. Stellarium will tell you the exact direction to look, called azimuth (Az) and how high in the sky the object is called Azimuth (Alt). But to find stars and planets you not only have to know which direction to look, but also how high in the sky what you are looking for is. For more information go to Keep in mind that while you use binoculars for navigating on earth you look forward and from side to side. Stellarium is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, available for Linux, Windows, and mac OSX. This interactive astronomy software displays a real time simulation for any day or night at any time worldwide. To help get this information we use Stellarium, a free and open-source planetarium program that displays a 3D simulation of the night sky. But here’s an app that lights up when you point your cell phone at a planet or star and identifies the object and tells you about it.

Pointing your cell phone at the sky, especially a dark sky with thousands of twinkling stars, can be intimidating. Stellarium is a skywatching software we like to use. There are many astronomy apps for your electronic devices and many are fun to use while providing information about observing the dark sky. Try this skywatching software on your cell phone and learn about the stars and planets. Use skywatching software for stargazers on your cell phone, tablet and laptop

Stellarium android compass