There's a full Messier catalog of nebulae, too. The constellations of 10 different cultures are included, as well as illustrations and asterisms to help you visualize what the ancients saw.

The default catalog includes 600,000 stars, with upgrade modules that can push the count up to 210 million stars. It does run only in full screen mode, making any other programs you're running inaccessible except for the ALT-Tab switcher. It doesn't suck away your RAM into a black hole when loading or running. It's not quite as robust as its competitors, but it's also a much faster program.

There are a variety of ways to manipulate and view the positions of the Sun and Moon, planets and stars.Open source and currently in use by planetarium projectors, Stellarium brings astronomer-level features to stargazers of all levels of interest. Quality of Technological Interactivity: The software is user-friendly for both students and teachers.

Monitoring Student Progress: Not applicable.

There are no classroom lesson guidelines for using this resource. Opportunities can also be provided to address the practice of representing data in graphical displays to reveal patterns that indicate relationships as well as the crosscutting concept - similarities and differences in patterns can be used to sort, classify, communicate and analyze simple rates of change for natural phenomena.

Alignment to the Dimensions of the NGSS: Use of the software with teacher direction and guidelines can significantly address elements of the disciplinary core idea.

When using the software to collect data concerning photoperiod, seasonal appearance of stars and/or constellations, students would be using patterns to analyze and communicate that data to others. This resource was not designed to build towards this crosscutting concept, but can be used to build towards it using the suggestions provided below.Ĭomments about Including the Crosscutting Concept

Stellarium .org