Freeware Directory

Freeware - Free Astronomy Software

This is a rolling, advanced 3D solar system with all the planets and some big moons in orbit. You can manually select view of planet or moon and the camera takes you there. It includes options like 'Height of view', 'Orbit speed / Distance', 'Earth atmosphere on/off', 'Rotation speed', 'Model scale' and 'Zoom scale'. Supports 3D or non-3D card and changes of GFX resolution. You can also save the preferences. If you have a very fast computer - set 'True Worlds'-option 'On', and you will not be disappointed! Recommended system: A 3D-card GFX hardware (32 MB or better); 1 GHZ CPU; 128 MB RAM.

The Foucault (pronounced FOO-COH) test is an optical bench test for evaluating astronomical mirrors. It is a null test for a sphere (in other words, it is most accurate and simple in measuring spherical mirrors), but is also commonly used to test parabolic mirrors. Foucault Test Analysis for Windows is a program for the evaluation of the readings taken in the Foucault test.

Alcyone Ephemeris is an accurate and fast astronomial ephemeris calculator covering the period 3000 BC to AD 3500. It calculates heliocentric, geocentric, and topocentric positions of the Sun (Earth), Moon, and planets in ecliptical, equatorial, and horizontal coordinates, with optional corrections for parallax and refraction; rectangular coordinates, velocity, acceleration, apparent diameter, magnitude, phase, lunar libration and more.

Moonphase - displays the current moon phase of the current day as an icon in the Activity field. You can change the time zone, latitude and longitude (just click on the map!) to get a more accurate moon rise and set time and also the sunrise and sunset. A little bonus: If you like to fish, mark the 'Show good fish days' option (fishing calendar).

The purpose of this program is to prepare different sky maps for a particular observation. A large number of parameters help you to choose specifically or automatically which catalogs to use, the colour and the dimension of stars and nebulae, the representation of planets, the display of labels and coordinate grids, the superposition of pictures, the condition of visibility and more. All these features make this celestial atlas more complete than a conventional planetarium.

SETI Monitor is a free add-on for SETI@home. It allows you to monitor the activity of your SETI@home client and see what it finds using virtually no CPU power. SETI Monitor shows the signals found by your SETI@home client and saves information about completed work units. You can see the signals found in your current work unit, browse through previous results and see the totals. SETI Monitor is extremely efficient as it uses less than 0.01% of CPU power. SETI Monitor also features the easiest to use work unit caching system for SETI@home in existence.

GrandTour creates accurate wireframe scenes from Voyager or Giotto spacecraft, and from space or Earth (spacecraft visible). User has considerable control over time, field, etc., and many frames/second are generated. Developed at JPL to assist in analysis of science and optical navigation data, it was also filmed by the BBC/NOVA for a Voyager documentary. Conveniently runs from any Windows/DOS.

Planet's Visibility presents a 3-color graph that shows when a planet, the moon or the sun is visible during any year from 3000 BC to AD 6000 at any location on the earth. The vertical axis marks the months of the year, the horizontal axis marks the hours of the day. The three colors create a contour map effect and show whether the body is under the horizon (black) and invisible, above the horizon with the sun (light color) and invisible, above the horizon without the sun (shaded color) and so possibly visible. The times of sunrise and sunset can be shown on all the diagrams.

Celestia is a free real-time space simulation that lets you experience our universe in three dimensions. Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn't confine you to the surface of the Earth, you can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. All travel in Celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit.

The Nine Planets is an overview of the history, mythology, and current scientific knowledge of each of the planets and moons in our solar system. Each page has text and images, some have sounds and movies, most provide references to additional related information. Interplanetary spacecraft have revolutionized planetary science. Very little of this document would have been possible without the space program.

Astron contains three small programs for astronomy - A program that converts equatorial coordinates to horizon coordinates - A program that calculates the approximate position of the naked eye planets - A program that calculates the percent illumination and age of the moon.

Exploring the Sun implements multi-disciplinary teaching approaches using NASA technologies to enhance existing curriculum. This module uses images from NASA, NOAA, and NSO to explore our Sun. It uses simple instructions (switches and buttons) with math to guide students through basic sun information, two science experiments and a fun multiple choice test. The information presented is very basic, but it is made much more interesting by actual photo images of the Sun. Our goal is to provide children the opportunity to learn about our Sun and to be able to do something they have never done before. Audience: Grades 6 - 12.

Exploring the Universe implements multi-disciplinary teaching approaches using NASA technologies to enhance existing curriculum. This module is a reading comprehension and math lesson from space using images from the Hubble Space Telescope, ground photos and other NASA probes to explain the universe. It also uses extremely simple instructions (switches and buttons) to guide students through the solar system, stars, galaxies and universe. The information presented is very basic, but it is made much more interesting by actual photographs and questions on each subject. Our goal is to provide children the opportunity to learn about our universe through observations and to be shown the benefits of space exploration. Audience: Grades 6 - 12.

The Hubble Space Telescope First Servicing Mission is a tutorial which uses NASA images to describe and explain the servicing mission. This software package is meant to be a technical guide containing reference material on the HST. The software uses extremely simple instructions (switches and buttons) to guide students through five topic sections on the HST Servicing Mission. The information presented is complicated, but it is made interesting by the use of actual photos of the Servicing Mission. Our goal is to provide children the opportunity to learn about new areas of space science. Audience: Grades 6 - 12.

Exploring the Earth implements multi-disciplinary teaching approaches using NASA technologies to enhance existing curriculum. This module is a vocabulary and geography lesson from space using images from Landsat and other NASA and NOAA probes. It also uses simple instructions (switches and buttons) to guide students through land, sea and air features visible from space. The information presented is very basic, but it is made interesting by actual photographs of surface images and by trivia questions on each subject. Our goal is to provide children the opportunity to learn about our Earth through observations and to be shown the benefits of space exploration. Audience: Grades 3 - 8.

Exploring the Solar System implements multi-disciplinary teaching approaches using NASA technologies to enhance existing curriculum. This module predominantly uses images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other NASA probes to explore our solar system. It also uses extremely simple instructions (switches and buttons) and math to guide students through planets, moons, rings, asteroids and comets in our solar system. The information presented is very basic, but it is made much more interesting by actual photo images of other planets. Our goal is to provide children the opportunity to learn about our solar system and to be able to do something they have never done before. Audience: Grades 3 - 8

StarCalc is the fastest professional astronomy planetarium & star mapping program today. It illustrates star positions of any instance of the day observed from any geographic locations on the Earth. The star positions can be viewed and presented as images of semispherical whole sky or any of the user defined sub-areas. These images can be zoomed at different scales, rotated, screen-captured and printed. Note: A number of plugin examples for StarCalc, which extened it's capabilities available from home page.

A comprehensive astronomy / space / satellite-tracking package. It allows you to view: An earth map, showing day and night regions, location of the Moon and current phase, and position of a selected earth satellite. Panel showing positions of planets and a selected asteroid or comet, both geocentric and from the observer's location. A sky map, based on either the Yale Bright Star Catalogue or the 256,000 star SAO catalogue, including rendering of spectral types, planets, earth satellites, asteroids and comets. Databases of the orbital elements of 5632 asteroids and principal periodic comets are included, allowing selection of any for tracking. A telescope window which can be aimed by clicking in the sky map or telescope itself, by entering coordinates, or by selecting an object in the Object Catalogue. And more and more and more...

presents a deceptively simple 3-color graph that tells, at-a-glance, when a planet (or moon, sun) is visible from your location. The vertical axis marks the months of the selected year, with the horizontal axis marking the 24 hours of the day (in local time). The three colors create a contour map effect and identify when the selected object is visible, not visible, or "eclipsed" by the sun. A fixed crosshair identifies the current date and time. By moving the mouse over the graph area, the date and time, as well as the objects altitude, azimuth, and magnitude (or the phase of the moon if the moon is selected) are displayed.

This is an accurate digital orrery with a wealth of functionality. Orbits uses time-dependent orbital elements for the calculation of planetary positions (except for Pluto). Good accuracy is thus obtained for the time range of +/- 4000 years. The most noteworthy functions are date specification (past, future), 3D orbital animation and custom zoom, orbits of 7000+ asteroids, and statistic and information windows.

Xearth for Windows is a port of Kirk Johnson's original xearth program to Microsoft Windows. Xearth renders a shaded image of the earth on your desktop, as seen from your favorite vantage point in space. By default, the image is updated every five minutes according to the current position of the sun.
One of the features of xearth is the ability to place markers on the globe at specific locations. Xearth comes with 76 locations built-in. If you know the latitude and longitude of a city, you can place a marker on your xearth map.
The source code to Xearth for Windows is now available!

The Sky Screen Saver shows the sky above any location on Earth, including stars (from the Yale Bright Star Catalogue of more than 9000 stars to the 7th magnitude), the Moon in its correct phase and position in the sky, and the position of the Sun and all the planets in the sky. Outlines, boundaries, and names of constellations can be displayed, as well as names and Bayer/Flamsteed designations of stars brighter than a given threshold. A database of more than 500 deep-sky objects, including all the Messier objects and bright NGC objects can be plotted to a given magnitude. The ecliptic and celestial equator can be plotted, complete with co-ordinates. To fulfill its mission as a screen saver, the sky map shifts position on the display every 10 minutes to avoid burning in those few components of the display which do not move as the Earth revolves. Installation Instructions are here.

Stellarium is a free Open Source planetarium, it renders 3D photo-realistic skies in real time with OpenGL. It displays stars, constellations, planets, nebulas and others things like ground, landscape, atmosphere, etc. It can be used in planetarium projectors, just set your coordinates and go.

Msetimon is an OpenSource graphical package to monitor seti activity that may be running on multiple computers over a network or multiple instances on the same computer. If you do not have multiple PCs Msetimon is great for Monitoring SETI@home activity for a single client while saving space on your desktop. It is the first program to monitor multiple PC's without having to cross mount file systems and it now has Boinc support. Rather than slowing down your cpu with fancy displays, Msetimon displays only the necessary facts at a glance. This is especially helpful if you are monitoring multiple computers that may be running SETI@home. The main window will give you a quick look at the progress each of your systems are making. If you wish to see more information just left click on the desired PC name or directory and a detailed work unit screen will appear. A right click will show the position of that work unit in the SkyMap.