# The &kstars; Handbook

Jason
Harris

    kstars@30doradus.org

Heiko
Evermann

    heiko@evermann.de

Core Developer
Thomas
Kabelmann

    tk78@gmx.de

Core Developer
Pablo
de Vicente

    pvicentea@wanadoo.es

Core Developer
Carsten
Niehaus

    cniehaus@gmx.de

Core Developer
Mark
Holloman

    mhh@mindspring.com

Core Developer
2001
2002
Jason Harris
&FDLNotice;
2002-10-08
0.9.1

&kstars; is a graphical desktop planetarium. It plots the positions of stars, constellations, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies and planets in the night sky for any date, from any location on Earth. The display can be panned and zoomed, and it can even identify and track objects as they move across the sky. &kstars; is highly configurable, you can control what objects are displayed, and with what colors. Images of any part of the sky can be downloaded from online databases. Our plan is to make &kstars; an interactive tool for learning about astronomy and the night sky.

KDE
kdeedu
Astronomy
KStars

## Introduction

&kstars; lets you explore the night sky from the comfort of your computer chair. It provides an accurate graphical representation of the night sky for any date, from any location on Earth. The display includes 40,000 stars to 8th magnitude (well below the naked-eye limit), 13,000 deep-sky objects (Messier, NGC and IC catalogs), all planets, the Sun and Moon, the Milky Way, and guide lines such as the celestial equator, horizon and ecliptic.

Please report bugs or feature requests to the &kstars; development mailing list: kstars-devel@lists.sourceforge.net. You can also use the automated bug reporting tool, accessible from the Help menu.

&quicktour; &config; &commands; &astroinfo; &faq; &credits; &install;

&documentation.index;