Name: _____________________________

Class: __________________________
Date: _____________________________

Using Stellarium
Written by Paul McCudden, Colorado Mountain College
Modified by Alexander Moreno

The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize yourself with the Stellarium program and its many capabilities and
features. Stellarium is a visually beautiful and powerful program that accurately displays the sky as seen from any
place on Earth (or from any other planet!) at any time. It's easy to use, but also full of accurate astronomical
information. If you have patience and follow the guidance in this and future assignments, by the end of the semester
you will be experts at using this amazing program! You will want to keep and use Stellarium for years to come, as
your personal planetarium and observatory! And the best thing about the program? It's free!

PART A

Our first step is to download and install the program. Go to the website: http://www.stellarium.org and download the
correct version of the program, either the one for PC, Mac, or Linux, depending on what kind of computer you have.
Once you have downloaded the appropriate file and saved it on your computer, run that file (double-click on it) to
install Stellarium on your computer.

NOTE - This and all other exercises are written for version 0.20.4 of Stellarium. There might be small variations in
the controls and display for other version of the program, but ALL VERSIONS SHOULD WORK! If you have a
problem with one version of the program working, try downloading an earlier version until you get one that works.

PART B

Now let’s start the program. Double-click on the Stellarium icon (it shows a small crescent Moon and some stars
above a horizon) that should now be on your computer’s desktop or in one of its menus.

You are looking at the sky and the Southern horizon, as they appear right now, from a field with trees on the horizon.
Your location information is always listed in the Information Bar at the bottom of the screen. The program chooses
its location from the computer’s location, so you may see “Bogota” as your location listed in the information bar.

You’ll need to set the home location – this is the viewing location that the program will automatically use to display
the sky every time it starts. For us, obviously, this will be Bogota. When you move your cursor to the lower left-
hand corner of the screen, two menu bars appear - a horizontal one on the bottom of the screen and a vertical one on
the lower-left side of the screen. Each of these menu bars display some icons. When you click on any of these icons,
a corresponding window opens up to control a particular part of the program. On the vertical menu bar, click on the
Location Window icon (it looks like a compass symbol). This will open the Location window. You can also
simply press F6 to open the Location window.

In the Location window you will see a map of the Earth on the left and a list of locations on the right, below which is
a search box (where the magnifying glass icon is) to enter a location. Type “Bogota” in the search box, and then
click on the name when it appears. If Bogota is not in Stellarium’s database of places, you’ll have enter it manually.
You can enter the Latitude and Longitude of your location directly into the program, with the controls below the
map. The Latitude of Bogota is 4.7110° North, and the Longitude is 74.0721° West. Don’t worry about what these
numbers mean – just type them in, along with an altitude of 2625 m. Name this new location “Bogota” and check
the “add to list” box. Once you have set yourself to Bogota, you need to save it as the default location so that every
time you start the program you will be observing the sky from there. To do this, make sure that the Use Current

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Location as Default box in the lower left-hand corner of the Location window has a check mark in it, and then close
the Location window by clicking on the X in the upper right-hand corner of the window (Don't close the whole
program!). From now on, when you start the program, you should be automatically observing the sky from Bogota!

Stellarium can accurately show you exactly which stars, constellations, planets, nebulae, galaxies, asteroids, comets,
and even satellites are in the sky at any time, give you information about them, and show you how they all change
positions as time passes. It's a very exciting program, but it takes a bit of getting used to. If you ever need help
within the program, click on the Question Mark button in the lower left edge (or press the F1 key), to open the Help
window.

You’re now ready to start exploring Stellarium! First let’s look around the screen. You are looking at a view of the
sky, with the ground below it. You are facing South (see the red “S” on the ground at the center? – that means
“South”), and you should be located in Bogota, indicated by “Earth, Bogota, 2625 m” in the Information Bar at the
bottom of the screen. The 2625 m indicates that you are 2625 meters above sea level. The time and date listed to
the right in the Information Bar should match the local time (as long as your computer itself has the correct time!).
UTC -5:00 or -6:00 means that we here in Bogota are currently 6 or 7 hours (depending on the season) behind the
world’s official time in London (known as “UTC”). If you’re doing this assignment during the day, the sky looks
blue, as you would expect! If you’re doing it at night, the sky looks dark, and there are stars (and perhaps planets and
the Moon) visible, again, as you would expect!

Let’s start navigating around the program. The buttons on the two menu bars have icons that represent various
functions of the program, and each opens a window that allows you to change various parameters of the program.
The most important button is the Sky and Viewing Options Window button, which has star and planet symbols on
it. This button opens the View window, which has seven sub-menus listed on tabs across the top.

Press the Sky and Viewing Options button to open the View menu. You can also open this menu by
simply pressing the F4 key.

 What are the names of the seven sub-menus listed across the top of the View Window? __________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

You can click on any of these sub-menus at the top and a different window will open up. Let's look at some of these
sub-menus.

 What Landscapes are available in Stellarium? _________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________

 List five of the Sky Cultures that are named in the Starlore sub-menu. ____________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________

 In which sub-menu do you find the Twinkle selection? ______________________________________

The Sky, SSO and DSO sub-menus of the View Window are important ones. The Sky sub-menu controls how the
sky and stars are displayed on screen in Stellarium. Let's look at it. There are sections here for Sky and Stars. In
both sections some items have boxes or sliders next to them that can be moved or checked or unchecked with check
marks.

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  What items are checked in the Stars section? _____________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________

 What is the “Limit Magnitude” set to in the Stars section?

_______________________________________________________________________________

 What is “Shooting Stars” rate set to? _______________________________

In the SSO sub-menu, (“SSO” stands for “Solar System Objects”) If they're not already checked, click on the boxes
next to Solar System Objects and Show Planet Markers to put checks in those boxes. Close the View menu.

Now open the Date and Time window by clicking on its icon (a little clock) in the left-hand menu bar. By clicking
on the arrows above or below each number in the Date and Time window, change the date and time to March 23,
2024. (Stellarium uses “military time,” where 1PM = 13:00, 2 PM = 14:00, etc.).

 What happens to the sky and the objects in the sky as the date and time change? _______________________

Close the Date and Time window by clicking on the “x” in its upper right-hand corner.

Press the Page Down button a few times (or CTRL and the Down Arrow key) on your computer as you watch the
screen.

 What happens on screen? ________________________________________________________________

 What happens when you press Page Up (or CTRL and Up Arrow)? _______________________________

To see the objects more easily, simply press the A button your keyboard. This button is called the Atmosphere
button.

• What happens when you press the A key? ____________________________________________________

Use the “A” key to turn off the atmosphere on and off a few times. Leave the atmosphere off.

Now press the “F” button on your keyboard. This is the Fog button. You may have to press it several times to notice
what happens. Look carefully near the horizon.

 What happens? ______________________________________________________________________

Now press the “G” button on your keyboard a few times. This is the Ground button.

 What happens? ______________________________________________________________________

Press the “A,” “G,” and “F” buttons again to turn the Atmosphere, Ground and Fog back on. These are very useful
buttons! If you ever want to see what stars are out during the day, you can do it with Stellarium by simply pressing
the “A” key! Note that you can also turn the Ground, and Atmosphere on and off using their icons in the toolbar at
the bottom of the screen.

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Suppose you wanted to look at a different part of the sky than the Southern horizon? No problem! There are many
ways to “point” in a different direction. Perhaps the easiest one is to “grab” the sky and drag it. To do this, just click
and hold the left mouse button down while dragging the mouse. As you do so, the sky is dragged. Try it.

Let go of the sky and drag it several times until you are looking at the Northern horizon. Now look at the Eastern &
Western horizons.

Now let's zoom out to see the whole sky at once. Zoom out (by pressing the Ctrl+Page Down button) until the Field
of View (indicated by FOV in the middle of the Information Bar at the bottom of the screen) is at least 180°.
Then drag the sky and/or horizon around until the whole sky is centered on the screen. Then drag the horizon around
in a circle until North is at the top of the screen. You should now be looking at the whole sky at once, shown as a
complete circle, centered on your screen, with the horizon (North, South, East and West) forming the edge of the
circle. The point at the center of this circle of the sky, which corresponds to the spot outside directly over your head,
is called the zenith. Note also that East and West are reversed, as discussed in class, since sky maps are meant to be
held over your head.

How do you know what you're looking at in Stellarium? Let's put labels on things onscreen. Open the View
window, and look in the Sky sub-menu. Look in the Stars section. If there isn't one already there, put a check mark
next to the box that says Stars. When you close the window, the names of the brightest stars will appear. Remember,
you may have to first press the “A” key to turn the atmosphere off and make the stars visible!

Pick any one of the bright stars and click on it carefully. When you do, it is selected, and a small “cross-hair”
appears on the star. Information about that star appears in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Much of this
information will make no sense to you yet, but by the end of the class, it will all be clear! The first line of information
contains several versions of the star's name, starting with the star's common name.

 What is your chosen star's common name? _________________________________

Let's show the names of more stars. Re-open the View window, and again look in the Stars section of the Sky sub-
menu. Put a check mark next to the Labels and Markers slider and drag the slider back and forth. Close the
window.

 What happened? ____________________________________________________________________

Go back and drag the slider back to where it was.

Suppose you wanted to center something in the sky. No problem. Simply click on the object to select it, and then
press the space bar. Pick another bright star and center it.

PART C

One of Stellarium's most important features is its ability to change, slow down, speed up or reverse time and watch
how things move in the sky. Stellarium shows you the way the sky looks at any time, and it changes as the real sky
changes!

To see this, center the Eastern horizon on the screen (by dragging the sky until the “E” is in the center of the screen),
zoom in until the Field of View is about 10° (you may have to drag and recenter the “E” as you zoom to keep it from
drifting off screen), and set the Date and Time to March 21, 2008, at 6:50 AM. Make sure the Atmosphere and
Fog are turned off by using the “A” and “F” keys (or by using the toolbar at the bottom of the screen). Open the
View window and make sure there are checks in the boxes next to Stars and Planets in the Labels and Markers
section of the Sky sub-menu. Close the window and simply watch the sky. Keep watching for 10 minutes.

 What happens? _________________________________________________________________________

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  What time does it happen? ________________________________________________________________

Suppose you don't want to wait for things to happen in “real time.” Suppose you want to make the time pass faster.
No problem. Reset the time to 6:50 AM, and this time look at the buttons at the right side of the bottom tool bar.
These are the time control buttons. One looks like a triangle – like a “play” button. This is the Set Normal Time
Rate button. To the right of this is one that looks like an hourglass. This is the Set Time to Now button that
automatically sets the time to the current time. Press it. Did the time and date change? To the right of this button is
the “Fast Forward” button – it's two triangles. This is the Increase Time Speed button. Finally, the farthest button to
the left is the Decrease Time Speed button.

Each of these buttons has a keyboard shortcut – pressing the K key is the same as pressing the Set Normal Time
Rate button, pressing the 8 key is the same as pressing the Set Time to Now button, pressing the L key is the same
as pressing the Increase Time Speed button, and pressing the J key is the same as pressing the Decrease Time
Speed button.

Reset the time and Date back to March 21, 2008, at 6:50 AM. Press the Increase Time Speed button once (or
simply press the “L” key on your keyboard). Watch the sky and look at the time in the Information Bar

 What do you notice about the way time is passing? _____________________________________________

Press the Normal Time Rate button (or the K key) and reset the Date & Time again to March 21, 2008, at 6:50
AM. Now press the Increase Time Speed button in the Time Control Bar twice and watch the sky and the Sun.

 What happens to objects in the sky? _________________________________________________________

 What happens if you press the Increase Time Speed button three times? ____________________________

 What happens if you press the Increase Time Speed button four times? _____________________________

Press the Set Normal Time Rate button (or press the K key) to return to normal time. Now press the Decrease
Time Speed button (or press the J key).

 What happens to objects in the sky? _________________________________________________________

 What happens if you press the Decrease Time Speed button twice times? ___________________________

 What happens if you press the Decrease Time Speed button three times? ____________________________

Each time you press the Increase Time Speed or Decrease Time Speed button, the time speed is changed by a
factor of 10 times slower or faster.

We can also step time forward in discrete units. For example, we can make time go forward by one hour or one day
in one single jump. Let's do this. Press the Set Time to Now button (or press the 8 key) and the Set Normal Time
Rate button (or the K key) to make time go normally. Look at the Information Bar to see what day and time it is.
Now press the CTRL and “=” (equals) keys on your keyboard and look at the Date & Time in the Information Bar
again.

 What happened to the date and time? ________________________________________________________

Now press CTRL and “-” (minus) keys on your keyboard and then look at the Date & Time.

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  What happened to the date and time? _________________________________________________________

Now press the “-” key on your keyboard, and then the “=“ key as you look at the Date & Time.

 What do the “-“ and “=” keys do to time? ____________________________________________________

 What do the “[“ and “]” keys do to time? _____________________________________________________

Stellarium allows us to change time backwards and forwards as much as we want, and make it go faster and slower
any way we want!

PART D

Stellarium can also show you a lot more than just stars. For example, we can see which planets are in the sky right
now. First, change time back to now by clicking on the Set Time to Now button (or by pressing the 8 key). Then
zoom out and reenter until the whole sky is visible. To have Stellarium point the planets out, open the View window,
go to the SSO sub-menu, and check the boxes next to Solar System Objects and Show Planet Markers. Close the
window. The planets (and perhaps a few of the larger asteroids) should be labeled on screen, with circles around
them to distinguish them from stars. You can also display the Planet Labels by clicking on the Planets Labels icon in
the bottom toolbar, or simply press the P key on your keyboard – try pressing it a few times!

Pick one of the planets that you see on the screen now, and click on it. To center the planet on the screen, press the
space bar.

 Which planet did you choose? _________________________________________________________

If you're answering this question during the day, turn off the atmosphere by pressing A. Find the nearest bright star
to your planet. Click on that star to identify it.

 What bright star is your planet near? _______________________________________________________

Click on your planet again to select it. Now let time pass as fast as you want, until you see the planet set on the
horizon. NOTE: since you have selected and centered the planet, it will stay still in the center of the screen, and the
ground will rise up to meet it – that's okay – just imagine that you are keeping your eyes on the planet as it moves
toward the ground! Now go backwards in time until you see the planet rise. You may have to make time go forward
or backward, or speed it up or slow it down, until your planet is just on the horizon.

 What time does this planet rise today? _________________ What time does it set? ______________

Stellarium also has a useful function that allows you to find any object in the sky. To use it, click on the Search
Window icon (the little magnifying glass) in the left-hand menu bar (or simply type CTRL-F or press the F3 key) to
open the Search Window. Once the Search Window is open, simply type in the name of the object you're looking
for in the box, and hit Enter. Stellarium will select that object, center it on the screen, and display its information in
the upper left-hand corner. If the object is not in the sky at the moment, Stellarium will point at the ground, since
that's where you would have to look to see it! To see the object in this case, you have to make the ground disappear.
Do this by pressing the “G” key on your keyboard.

Find the planet Jupiter. Zoom in to it until you can see the planet as a disk. An easy way to do this is by simply
pressing the “/” (“slash”) key. Do you see the four labeled dots to one side or another of Jupiter (their names are Io,
Europa, Ganymede and Callisto)?

 What do you think these objects are? _______________________________________________________

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Let's look at one of the so-called “Deep Sky” objects. We'll find out later in the semester what this term means, but
for now, let's just say they're exciting, far-away objects in the sky. Use the Search Window to find M31. M31 is
also known as the Andromeda Galaxy! Zoom in or out until the Andromeda Galaxy fills the screen!

 Describe the Andromeda Galaxy ____________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The “M” in M31 stands for Charles Messier, a famous astronomer from the 18 th century. Try picking another “M”
object by typing in another number (1-103) after M in the Search window. Zoom in to see your new Messier object
up close.

 Which object did you choose? ______________________

 Describe your object ______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Finally, close Stellarium by clicking on the Quit button at the right of the toolbar at the bottom of the screen.

Whew! As you can see, Stellarium is a beautiful, powerful and complex program. We will make good use of it this
semester, however it will take some getting used to! Don’t worry! Soon you will have mastered it.

Write a few sentence-long conclusion describing what you learned in this exercise, what you like about the
Stellarium program and what you dislike.

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