A comprehensive software suite for astronomy enthusiasts provides a real-time, immersive experience of the skies, supporting observing logs, Live Orbits, Sky Quiz, spoken guidance, and an A-Z encyclopedia. The powerful search feature offers an extensive exploration of planets, comets, asteroids, DSOs, and 300,000 stars.
In terms of planetarium effects, Stella 2000 impresses with scintillation, extinction, refraction, and precession in point source, photo plate and spotlight display styles. Furthermore, Stella 2000 includes the complete Messier catalog in image icons. It also has an HTML guide to the solar system, a 1000-term astronomical dictionary, and the 2nd revised and enlarged edition of Aspects of Astronomy as a book-length primer covering topics such as "What are the Stars?", "Choosing a Telescope", "Cosmology", "Dark Matter", "Eclipses", and "The History of Astronomy", to name a few - all of which are closely coordinated with the sky display and picture windows.
What is even more impressive is that Stella 2000 uses Microsoft Agent speech technology to talk and teach aloud. The animated characters help you easily navigate through the pronunciation of various star names and lore, read aloud from Astrogloss and Aspects of Astronomy, and provide spoken guidance whenever needed. Stella's Drag Mode brings complete plasticity into all your interactions with the planetarium display. Dragging the mouse auto-scrolls sky quadrants smoothly and quickly into view from three selectable planes of reference: Horizon (local), Equatorial (atlas), and Ecliptic / Heliocentric.
Stella 2000 is also tightly integrated with the web, providing direct links to extensive DSO and planetary information. Auto-Search feature instantly updates readouts and reports on any object your mouse pointer scrolls over. You may even slew your Meade ETX / LX200 telescope to the object selected in Stella's sky.
Overall, this comprehensive astronomy software suite is an indispensable tool for any astronomy enthusiast. With its stellar features and powerful capabilities, Stella 2000 is a must-have program on your computer.
Version 6.0.3.1: N/A
Version 6.03: Orbit orrery, auto-track comets & asteroids