Stellarium and a telescope

Stellarium is a wonderfull planetarium program that runs on Ubuntu. It can be used to run Celestron and Meade telescopes too.

First install the latest version. The version in te repositories is usually outdated. But now there is a ppa that can be used to install Stellariums newest version.

To install Stellarium in Ubuntu, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to get the Terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stellarium/stellarium-releases

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install stellarium

Features of stellarium:

sky

• default catalogue of over 600,000 stars
• extra catalogues with more than 210 million stars
• asterisms and illustrations of the constellations
• constellations for 15 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
• 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

customizability

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

Connect the telescope

In this section I will explain how to get the connection between Ubuntu and Stellarium to work in Ubuntu.

For windows though you can find many tutorials on Youtube. You need to install lots of drivers and software before thing work.

In Ubuntu everything works out of the box, after some tweaking of settings.

VERY IMPORTANT and almost NEVER read in any tutorial:

First add yourself to the DIALOUT group and reboot to have these rights to take effect. Use your linux login name and not your fancy name.

sudo adduser <the user you want to add> dialout

(E.G. sudo adduser myname dialout)

sudo reboot

The computer will reboot now. (place this page in your bookmarks, so you can find it again after reboot was complete.)

check if you're part of dialout with this command after you rebooted your ubuntu:

id -Gn

Check is ttyUSB0 is part of dialout (works only if the cable is connected)

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0

or 

ls -l /dev/ttyS0

will show you if ttyUSB0 or ttyS0 is part of dialout. in my case the output is:

crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 dec 22 23:01 /dev/ttyUSB0

From now

In Ubuntu getting the telescope to work is easier than in Windows. There is absolutely no need to install any driver when you're using the 12.04 LTS and in 20.04 LTS version of Ubuntu. Probably not in other versions too, but I haven't tested these.

Connect the serial cable to your RS232 port (or USB to RS232 cable) and your handset of your telescope (not to the AUX of guided input) . In Stellarium go to the settings and select plugins. Here you should select the telescope plugin. Here you can add a telescope. Give it a convenient name and choose the appropriate kind of telescope you're using. E.g. the Celestron Nexstar series. The option to connect the telescope when Stellarium is started should be selected.

The RS232 port is usualy /dev/ttyS0

The USB to RS232 is usually /dev/ttyUSB0

Now its time to align your telescope. I usually point the telescope to the Polaris. It's easy to find and can be used in a one star alignment.

After that I started Stellarium and presto, the telescope view was visible. Select an object in the sky and press CTRL 1 (if this is your first telescope in the list). The telescope starts to move to the desired sky object. Easier than with the GOTO handset.

Now find a way to take your laptop with you and go planethunting.