Stellarium for Java is a Java version of Stellarium, a free GPL software which renders realistic skies in real time. With Stellarium, you really see what you can see with your eyes, binoculars or a small telescope. Stellarium is also used in planetariums.

Stellarium for Java (S4J) aims to provide the same functionnalities as the original Stellarium but over the Java platform, thus allowing both a greater portability accross platforms and low level APIs (OpenGL, Direct3X) and evolutivity, as well as lighter and easier coding.

PC screenshots:

Mac screenshots:

Check out S4J feedback:

• Frank Coyle sur InformIT : saw a REALLY cool demo - pick a place on the earth and you get to see the stars that are above you in the sky - day and night, with annotations on the celestial objects.
• on gtablue : JOGL / Stellarium (a cool planetarium-like program written in Java)
• Wouter van Reeven sur AMIS : THE BEST AND COOLEST demo I have ever seen: The biggest hobby in my life is astronomy. It has been for a long time and I even have a degree in it. Seeing that the science wasn’t as much fun as the hobby, I persued a carreer in ICT. My colleague Lucas told me there was going to be a presentation about porting a planetarium program called Stellarium from C++ to Java using Java OpenGL, or JOGL. Getting a real good overview of what problems you get when trying to port an application from C++ to Java, the demos simply kicked ass! If you have some time, check out Stellarium for Java. It runs fast and smoothly, at least on modern computers. At one point Jerome Beau and Frederic Simon showed a star map and then opened up the Location selector map. While having pressed down the left mouse button and dragging the mouse pointer all over the Earth, the star map in the background got redrawn almost instantaneously. Another pretty cool feature was the fading in and out of constellation lines, azimuth and equatorial grid, etc etc. These guys really have done a tremendously good job with this application. After the presentation I gave them my cards and asked them to contact me. They are in need of astronomers and/or Java coders so if you like, go and help them.
• Jerome Beau's report from JavaOne (french)
• Fred Simon's alpha release annoucement
• Jerome Beau's alpha release annoucement (french)
• Michael Levin's Weblog and Swampcast : Stellarium - Something New Under the Sun
• JavaPosse Roundup '08 from the Swamp