Getting to know our sky is a fundamental step for any astronomy project, and the best part is that we don't even need to go out and buy equipment to achieve it. The web is full of free tools, some more visual than others, but all of excellent quality. One of them is Hallo Northern Sky, a planetarium with more than twenty years of development under its belt, which can access different databases and control telescopes under specific interfaces.
Accessing a clean sky is a true privilege these days. Even streetlights themselves can sabotage any attempt to point a telescope or a pair of binoculars upward, but that's no reason to give up. The web revolutionized the way we access astronomy, especially for beginners who are still learning/studying where to invest their time and money. Many experts have responded to that interest with wonderful tools, among which Stellarium and WinStars stand out, but today we'd like to add Hallo Northern Sky, with more than twenty years of development.
Install a planetarium on your PC with Hallo Northern Sky
Now, I must admit that Hallo Northern Sky is not necessarily designed "for beginners". In fact, its first run can be very intimidating, and the same extends to its interface. The first thing the program asks for is our physical location to correctly represent the sky. Under the Date menu we can tell Hallo to follow the computer's time, "anticipate" the night, so to speak, or specify a date and time.
The Search function is without a doubt our main ally. We can do a direct search, or explore the available categories: Constellations, Stars, Asteroids, Comets, Planetary and Deep Sky. In many cases, objects are accompanied by images, such as the Andromeda galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Want to know more about a specific item? Click on Help, and there you'll find not only technical information, but also recommendations for observing it.
Obviously, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Hallo Northern Sky has or can query information on 30,000 objects and millions of stars, and it can also control telescopes compatible with ASCOM and INDI interfaces. To wrap up, Hallo is free and open source, with versions for Windows, Linux, macOS, and even the Raspberry Pi.
Official site and download: Click here
