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.

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	RAM needed
stars_0_0v0_0.cat	5013	m < 6.0	256 M
stars_1_0v0_0.cat	21999	6.0 <= m < 7.5	256 M
stars_2_0v0_0.cat	151516	7.5 <= m < 9.0	256 M
stars_3_0v0_0.cat	434064	9.0 <= m < 10.5	256 M
stars_4_1v0_0.cat	1725497	10.5 <= m < 12.0	512 M
stars_5_1v0_0.cat	7669011	12.0 <= m < 13.5	512 M
stars_6_2v0_0.cat	26615233	13.5 <= m < 15.0	512 M
stars_7_2v0_0.cat	57826266	15.0 <= m < 16.5	512 M
stars_8_2v0_0.cat	116923084	16.5 <= m < 18.0	1024 M

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.