Among the applications that have aroused my curiosity the most are planetariums. This type of application provides us with information on planets, stars, etc., with so many details that we can spend hours in front of them. The KDE Community proposal is kstars, a planetarium which is available for Linux, as well as the other two most used desktop operating systems: macOS and Windows. KDE launched today a new version, more specifically Kstars 3.2.2.
Kstars 3.2.2 has been released primarily to fix bugs, but also to add a few functions that we will detail after the cut. Also after the cut we will teach you how to install Kstars on Linux, not without first mentioning that it is in the APT version from the official Ubuntu repositories (with a good handful of dependencies) and in a Snap package that contains everything you need in the same package. It seems important to mention that the Snap version, contrary to what you should expect, is more outdated than the APT version.
Kstars 3.2.2 now available for Linux, macOS and Windows
We can install Kstars via terminal or from the software center. From the software center, simply search for "Kstars" and install the program. If we want to do it via terminal we will do it with these commands:
Snap version:
] sudo snap install kstars
APT version:
sudo apt install kstars
What's new in this version
- Important stability fix for closures reported with FITS Viewer.
- Ignore Video Streaming when guiding via PHD2 with a video device.
- Automatic syncing for active devices at startup.
- Fixes in the flip action.
- GUI parameters are kept for the scheduler and capture in sync with the queue selection.
- When a manual filter is detected, the user is asked whether to change the filter and update the driver accordingly.
- Fixed the object filter of the watch list wizard by time and altitude and introduced a coverage parameter where the user can control the percentage.
- Improved saving of settings in all Ekos modules.
You have more detailed information in this other article that my partner David wrote in March. Have you tried Kstars? How about?