Solar System Scope isn’t as feature-rich as other astronomy chart software solutions on this list. But it’s still entertaining. It facilitates a 3D simulated environment of the solar system and night sky, complete with celestial bodies.
You can freely roam our solar system and get technical information about any planet or star, including composition, distance, galaxy, and structure, along with convective and radiative zone.
When exploring the encyclopedia of a body, you can switch to night sky mode to see where you would have to look to locate the body and how it is positioned compared to known planets.
A simple catalog is put at your disposal for exploring the solar system, night sky, planets, stars, Messier objects, and nearby star systems. Sound effects and background music are included, but you can turn them off.
As far as viewing options are concerned, you can control what you wish to display in the map when it comes to stars and their names, Messier objects and their names, star position lines, scale grid, as well as distance names and lines.
The online version of Solar System Scope is free to use. There’s an offline mode, too, which comes with a free demo. The main difference is that the offline version has superior graphics.
You can also download new high-resolution textures for free, which are based on NASA elevation and imagery data.
Pros:
- Great 3D design and navigation
- Great for calculating the trajectory of celestial objects
- The online version is Free
- Comes with an offline mode
Cons:
- The downloadable client is not free
Conclusion on astronomy chart software
With Celestia and SpaceEngine, you feel that you joined a sandbox video game, where you can freely roam the universe.
Stellarium gives an accurate representation of the sky as seen from Earth, while Solar System Scope focuses on objects from our own solar system and the neighborhood, too.
Whether you need to work on an important astronomy project for school or just take a break and lose yourself in outer space, you can look into the astronomy chart software tools on this list.
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