Cartes du Ciel

Infobox Software
name = Cartes du Ciel


caption = Screenshot of Version 3 beta 0.1.0
developer = Patrick Chevalley
latest preview version = 3 beta 0.1.4
latest preview date = 2007-12-30
latest release version = 2.76
latest release date = 2004-11-23
operating system = Cross-platform
license = GPL
genre = planetarium
Educational software
website = [http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/ Version 2 (stable)] and [http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/index.php Version 3 (beta)]

Cartes du Ciel is an open source planetarium program for Linux and Windows. With the change to version 3, Linux has been added as a target platform, licensing has changed from freeware to GPL and the project moved to a new website.

This software can be downloaded from http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/. It maps out and labels all the constellations, planets, and almost anything else you can see with a telescope.

Cartes du Ciel is one of the most popular personal computer planetarium programs. It is a full featured program, yet it is available at no cost, it is freeware.

It has many features that exceed the most expensive astronomy applications. For example, most planetarium programs can download Digitized Sky Survey Charts. Cartes du Ciel can superimpose images over these charts. There are telescope interfaces and many versatile display options.

The programmer, Patrick Chevalley's reasoning for the free status of such an excellent program? “I’d rather see amateurs spend their money for a new eyepiece than for astronomy software.” Patrick has also created a excellent lunar atlas program, Virtual Moon Atlas, which is also freeware.

This program has been available for Windows computers for many years. Numerous star charts and indexes can be installed. It has grown rapidly over the years from a modest initial release into a very full-featured program. Numerous additions and enhancements have led to version 2.76. The need to properly integrate all of these features has led to version 3.0. This version is available for Linux operating systems.

See also

*Celestia
*KStars
*NASA World Wind
*Stellarium
*XEphem

External links

* [http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/ Version 2]
* [http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/ Version 3]