Cartes du Ciel

This article is about a piece of astronomy software. For the star mapping project with a similar name, see Carte du Ciel.

Cartes du Ciel ("CDC" and "SkyChart") is a free and open source planetarium program for Linux, macOS, and Windows.^[2] With the change to version 3, Linux has been added as a target platform, licensing has changed from freeware to GPLv2 and the project moved to a new website.

Cartes du Ciel

Screenshot of Version 3 beta 0.1.0
Developer(s)	Patrick Chevalley
Stable release	4.2.1 / 24 November 2019; 5 years ago (2019-11-24)
Preview release	4.3-4905[1] / December 9, 2024 (2024-12-09)
Written in	Object Pascal
Operating system	Cross-platform (Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux)
Type	planetarium Educational software
License	GPLv2
Website	Cartes du Ciel homepage

CDC includes the ability to control computerized GoTo telescope mounts, is ASCOM and INDI compliant, and supports the USNO's UCAC catalogs and ESA Gaia data,^{[citation needed]} along with numerous other catalogs and utilities.^[3]

The "red bulb" feature is useful when using software outside on a laptop on a dark night.^[4]

According to the programmer, Patrick Chevalley, it was released as freeware because "I’d rather see amateurs spend their money for a new eyepiece than for astronomy software".^[5]

Chevalley has also created a lunar atlas program, Virtual Moon Atlas, which is also free and open source software.^[6]

See also

• Free and open-source software portal
• Astronomy portal

• Space flight simulation game
  • List of space flight simulation games
• Planetarium software
• List of observatory software

References

1. "Sky Chart / Cartes du Ciel". SourceForge.net, /0-beta/2024-12-09. 9 December 2024.
2. Parkerson 2019.
3. Thompson & Thompson 2005, pp. 360–361.
4. Clark 2015, pp. 11–12.
5. "The Silicon Sky Part I: Planetariums for PCs - Uncle Rod". Cloudy Nights. Retrieved Aug 7, 2021.
6. "Virtual Moon Atlas". sourceforge.net. 2 May 2023.

• Thompson, Robert Bruce; Thompson, Barbara Fritchman (2005). Astronomy Hacks. O'Reilly. ISBN 9780596100605. OCLC 64594529.
• Clark, Jane (2015). Viewing and Imaging the Solar System : A Guide for Amateur Astronomers. Patrick Moore's practical astronomy series. Springer. ISBN 9781461451792. OCLC 1120670814.
• Parkerson, Stuart (28 October 2019). "Cartes du Ciel Version 4.2 Planetarium Software". Astronomy Technology Today. Retrieved 8 August 2021.

External links

• Version 2 (archived)
• Version 4