Using Celestia like Starry Night

[doctorja]

Please forgive me for asking a question that probably is already documented somewhere, but I have looked around for a bit and still not found the answer...

I teach astronomy at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida, and I would like to know how to use Celestia to show a map of the sky as it would appear from a particular location on the surface of the Earth. For example, say I wanted to see a map of the sky over Jacksonville tonight.

My students could really benefit from having access to a program that would do the work of a commercial one like Starry Night, but wouldn't cost an arm and a leg to get if they buy a used book and the previous owner didn't leave the CD in it.

Again, sorry for asking this if the information is already available somewhere. If it is, just a pointer to that location would be sufficient.

Thanks very much

John Anderson
Dept of Chemistry & Physics
University of North Florida

[selden]

It's mentioned in the FAQ.

Q19: How can I make Celestia work like a planetarium? I want to see how the sky should look from my backyard.

The version of the FAQ that's in in the WikiBook is somewhat better organized:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celestia/F ... y_backyard.

[doctorja]

Thank you. I will check it out.

John

[Andy74]

My students could really benefit from having access to a program that would do the work of a commercial one like Starry Night, but wouldn't cost an arm and a leg to get if they buy a used book and the previous owner didn't leave the CD in it.

doctorja,

if you're looking for free planetarium software, you might also want to try

1) Stellarium: http://www.stellarium.org/

2) WinStars: http://www.winstars.net/english/ -- WinStars is shareware but can be used legally without registering.

If you want to use Celestia as a planetarium you should try Vincent's Lua Edu Tools for additional features: http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=12048.

Regards
Andy

[doctorja]

Thanks. I'll check those out, too.

John