Star Catalogues
In Stellarium version 0.9.0, star catalogues are split into 9 files, which contain stars of varying brightness. These files can be found in the <installation directory>/stars/default/. Only the smaller four of these files come with Stellarium in the main package to keep the size manageable.
About 99% of all these stars come from the NOMAD catalog (Naval Observatory Merged Astrometric Dataset version 1, by USNO). The rest (brighter ones) from Tycho2 and Hipparcos. Please see the stellarium README file for the conditions, under which you may redistribute data files originating from NOMAD.
Here is a list of all available catalogues. The RAM needed column is an estimate. (MNG managed to load file 7 with 512 M ram, but only just. YMMV).
| File name | Star Count | Magnitude Range | File Size | RAM needed | Availability |
| stars_0_0v0_1.cat | 5,013 | m < 6.0 | 138K | 256M | In default package |
| stars_1_0v0_1.cat | 21,999 | 6.0 <= m < 7.5 | 602K | 256M | In default package |
| stars_2_0v0_1.cat | 151,516 | 7.5 <= m < 9.0 | 4.1M | 256M | In default package |
| stars_3_1v0_0.cat | 434,064 | 9.0 <= m < 10.5 | 4.2M | 256M | In default package |
| stars_4_1v0_0.cat | 1,725,497 | 10.5 <= m < 12.0 | 17M | 512M | Separate download |
| stars_5_2v0_0.cat | 7,669,011 | 12.0 <= m < 13.5 | 44M | 512M | Separate download |
| stars_6_2v0_0.cat | 26,615,233 | 13.5 <= m < 15.0 | 153M | 512M | Separate download |
| stars_7_2v0_0.cat | 57,826,266 | 15.0 <= m < 16.5 | 333M | 512M (just!) | Separate download |
| stars_8_2v0_0.cat | 116,923,084 | 16.5 <= m < 18.0 | 674M | 1024M? | Separate download |
To try out the large catalogue files download them from here, and put then in the stars/default sub-directory of the Installation Data Directory.
NOTE: when downloading from this page, do not right-click and save as - left click. These are not direct download links - they are links to the list of download mirrors. Left click on them, and wait for your download to start.
For using stars_7_2v0_0.cat i recommend 1GB or RAM, and for stars_8_2v0_0.cat at lease 1.5GB. In version 0.9.0 the catalogs are just loaded into RAM, and if you do not have enough of it, swapping will start. Add up the star catalog sizes, compare with your amount of RAM, and your common sense will tell you how many files you can load. Yours, Johannes
Errata
Prior to version 0.9.1 the files stars_3_1v0_0.cat and stars_5_2v0_0.cat were falsely called stars_3_0v0_0.cat and stars_5_1v0_0.cat. Now this misnaming is fixed. The contents of the files is unchanged, just the names have been fixed in order to reflect the contents, which is stars of type 1 and of type 2, respectively. All you have to do is make sure your file stars.ini lists the names of your star catalog files, no matter whether you use the new names or the old ones.
