WinStars

The universe is a big place and it's hard to observe anything with the naked eye. If you don't have a telescope, a computer is the next best thing. WinStars allows you to explore our solar system in a high-quality 3D environment. You can observe neighboring planets, probes, comets and other bodies in real time, and retrieve all sorts of details and statistics. The software provides an accurate and detailed representation of the solar system, and it lets you navigate to any part you want.

Downloading and installing WinStars shouldn't take more than a minute. It is available for all major platforms, including all the latest Windows versions. The software doesn't require powerful hardware and it runs straight out of the box, without relying on any third party tools or services.

The software's entire user interface consists of a 3D environment, in which you can pan and zoom by clicking and dragging and spinning the mouse wheel. You start with a view from the ground and you can zoom until you can see planets or other bodies in detail. A series of options can be found all around the main window, and you can use them to jump to a specific celestial body, enable and disable various overlays, like clouds, orbits, trajectories, constellations and much more.

Everything is animated, so you will see planets moving and you will find it a bit difficult to keep them in sight if you focus on them from a great distance. Fortunately, WinStars lets you control the animation speed, and it provides you with other useful camera controls as well. The software uses your current location to display the positions of all bodies on the sky accurately, as if you were looking at them in real life. You can switch from the on-the-ground view to a map-like view of the solar system, which makes it much easier to spot planets and other objects.

If you don't have a telescope, WinStars gives you the possibility of admiring celestial bodies from the comforts of your desktop.