Features of AlienSun 3.0
Important notice for AlienSun users regarding satellite TLEs updated 2005 Sep. 30
AlienSun is a sophisticated astronomy program capable of displaying objects in 3 dimensional space, and portraying the sky as it would look from the vicinity or surface of any object.
Click here to see the new features in version 3.0!
Sky Atlas View
This view mode displays celestial objects by their right ascension and declination, with no intervening horizon. When viewed from a planet or other solid object, the whole sky is available all the time.
View from the Earth.
Topocentric positions are also displayed of nearby objects. Here, the Moon is shown against background stars as seen from Australia, Brazil, and Alaska.
When viewed from a point in space, the sky atlas view simulates actually being there.
Saturn and some of its moons.
Planetarium View
AlienSun 3.0 is also a planetarium application, and can display the sky from any point on the Earth or any other planet, moon, or asteroid.
Sunset out in the open ocean. Also shown are Venus, Spica, Jupiter, and Mercury.
Nighttime in the Arizona desert.
The Sun rises on Mars.
Uranus looms over Miranda's horizon.
Sun Clock
AlienSun 3.0 has yet another display mode: it can function as a sun clock, and display the entire surface of any planet, moon, or asteroid showing which areas are sunlit.
Sun clock of the Earth.
Satellites, Asteroids, and Comets
You can enter the orbital elements of celestial objects other than those which load on startup, and show those objects' positions as they orbit the Earth, Sun, or other celestial body.
AlienSun's Add Orbit dialog box. From here you can enter orbital elements manually, or load them from stored files containing information for satellites, asteroids, and comets.
You can add satellites one at a time or in groups having the same name (such as IRIDIUM or GPS). Once loaded, they will appear in all 3 view modes, thus allowing you to observe passes and ground tracks. You can also observe the view from a satellite.
International Space Station passing overhead.
Sun clock showing 2 satellites and their ground tracks.
View of the Earth from a weather satellite.
Asteroids may be loaded one at a time, or a preset number may be loaded at startup. The Add Orbit dialog even has a feature that allows you to search for an asteroid. AlienSun is compatible with the astorb database. Once the asteroids are loaded, all the features that work with planets and moons will work with asteroids as well.
Vesta during its close approach in September, 2004
AlienSun 3.0 also allows you to load comets into the view, using the same dialog as asteroids and satellites.
Customizable Planets and Moons
AlienSun 3.0 includes hundreds of moons and planets, including extrasolar planets. In addition to these, you can add your own custom planets and moons. AlienSun will even use your custom texture maps.
Fictitious icy planet using a custom texture map.
What's New in 3.0
You can now track an object as it moves across the sky, and "watch" an object to keep track of its distance, magnitude, and coordinates. You can set up AlienSun so that a sound plays when an object rises or sets in the planetarium view; AlienSun 3.0 will automatically update the view regularly and sound an alert when the object crosses the horizon.
One of the effects that the tracking feature enables is a "flyby" sequence; by keeping the view centered on an object and making a spaceflight past it, the view changes to show the object from more than one direction. Click here to see an example flyby sequence (827 KB GIF file).
The sky color has been made more realistic. At sunrise and sunset, a gradient is displayed in the direction of the Sun. At night, the sky will lighten according to the phase of the moon and your locale's light pollution levels.
The overall speed of the video rendering has been improved, and the interface has been made more user friendly. As with the previous version, there is a red light mode - but now there is also a white background mode suitable for printing. AlienSun 3.0 can print views, save them in bitmap (BMP) format, even copy them to the clipboard.
With all these features, AlienSun 3.0 is more versatile than most astronomy software. All the graphics on this page were made with AlienSun, including the background. You can't afford to miss out on this exciting new application!
Download the evaluation version of AlienSun 3.0
View the User's Manual for AlienSun 3.0
Buy AlienSun 3.0 now.
AlienSun 3.0 is copyright (C) 2002-2005 by E. Lee Gagnon. All rights reserved.