I’ve been looking at getting into astronomy for some time now but am struggling to justify the cost and I’m a little bit worried about the learning curve. It’s less of a hobby and more of a full time job! Just choosing the right equipment is a daunting task. I tend not to do things by halves and looking at the costs, I’d probably need to spend upwards of £2k/$4k to find a telescope which will meet my expectations. I’m also not too patient and buying binoculars probably isn’t going to be all that satisfying for me even though that’s the advice I’ve been given. Starting off small and progressing is just not me

The thought of navigating the night skies and seeing images such as this is so exciting.

(Image courtesy of Meade)

This was taken with a Meade LX90 which retails at about £2500/$4500.

Obviously you need more than the equipment to get those kinds of images, it takes an awful lot of learning and that’s partly what I’m worried about.

Over the past few months, in between researching and thinking about all of this, I’ve been looking around at various pieces of software which could satisfy my initial hunger. I stumbled across Stellarium a few weeks ago. It’s absolutely magnificent.

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.”

Although it does have a few bugs which need ironing out, on the whole it’s an incredible starting point for anyone interested in astronomy and very easy to learn. As a piece of open source software you can’t go wrong. I’d certainly pay for it if so that fact it’s free is a bonus.

Just set your coordinates and track planets, stars and galaxies as if you were in your back garden. If you install all the extra catalogues and images it has over 210 million stars. There are also plenty of nebula images for those that wish to dream

So do download it if you’re interested, you might even find yourself struggling as I have over thoughts of which telescope to buy.

If anyone is already an astronomer who wants to help then drop me an email or leave a comment. I’d love to get some first hand advice!