How to install Stellarium 0.16 - A 3D Planetarium Software on Linux

Stellarium 0.16 recently released, is a free open source planetarium app that enables you to have a realistic view of the sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. This release comes with a hug list of added features as well as bug fixes some of which are outlined below in the changelog. Before we proceed with how to install Stellarium on Ubuntu, lets take a quick look its features.

Stellarium Features

sky

• default catalogue of over 600,000 stars
• extra catalogues with more than 210 million stars
• asterisms and illustrations of the constellations
• constellations for 20+ different cultures
• images of nebulae (full Messier catalogue)
• realistic Milky Way
• very realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset
• the planets and their satellites

interface

• a powerful zoom feature
• time control
• multilingual interface
• fisheye projection for planetarium domes
• spheric mirror projection for your own low-cost dome
• all new graphical interface and extensive keyboard control
• telescope control

visualisation

• equatorial and azimuthal grids
• star twinkling
• shooting stars
• eclipse simulation
• supernovae simulation
• skinnable landscapes, now with spheric panorama projection

customisability

• plugin system adding artifical satellites, ocular simulation, telescope configuration and more
• ability to add new solar system objects from on-line resources…
• add your own deep sky objects, landscapes, constellation images, scripts…

Stellarium 0.16 Changelog

New Features

• RemoteSync plugin, which allows running several connected instances of Stellarium.
• Non-spherical models for solar system objects like asteroids and small moons.
• Solar system config file is now split into two parts.
• AstroCalc feature extension: What's Up Tonight, graphs,…
• DSO: Addition of catalogs of peculiar galaxies
• New Skycultures: Belarusian, Hawaiian Star Lines
• Telescope plugin: support for the RTS2 telescope system.
• Location can now be read from a GPS device

Full list of changes

How to install Stellarium 0.16 on Ubuntu 17.04, Ubuntu 16.10, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf, Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet, Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stellarium/stellarium-releases sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install stellarium

How to uninstall Stellarium from Ubuntu

sudo apt-get remove stellarium