Night Vision is a "planetarium" program that will display the heavens from any location on earth. Viewing options allow the user to control which sky objects to display, which font to use, and manipulation of various star parameters. Time may be set to run at multiple speeds, including backwards. Star charts may be printed.
Night Vision is written in 100% pure Java, allowing it to run on all major desktop systems. (Includes PCs, Macs, Linux, ...)
Version 5.2 adds:
Version 5.1 adds:
Version 5.0 previously added:
A view of Night Vision
Use the mouse to manipulate the view. Dragging will re-position as desired. The mouse wheel zooms in or out.
Solar system window
Night Vision should run on any computer that contains a recent Java Runtime Environment (Java 1.5 or later). Almost all computers sold in recent years meet this requirement. (In the unlikely event that yours does not, the Java software can be downloaded from the Java download website.)
Night Vision has been designed to be readily translable into other languages. See the online help for information.
A Russian translation of (a previous version of) this program appears here.
Windows users can click here (22.8MB) to get a self-installing package. (Clicking the link is sufficient on some web browsers. On others a single file will be downloaded onto your PC. Remember where you downloaded it to, find it, and then execute it to install.)
Mac OS X users can click here (21.8MB) to get a self-installing package. Click here if installing to OS 10.8 Mountain Lion or later.
Linux users can click here <32 bit> (22.2MB) and here <64 bit> (23.4MB) to get a self-installing package. (The Java Runtime Environment in recent Linux distributions should work fine. If there are issues, it may be advisable to install Oracle's Java Runtime Environment.)
Users of other operating systems, and those who prefer manual installation, can click here (18.1MB). (Download to a clean directory, unzip, and use a web browser to follow the directions in nvj.html).
Source code is available here (18.2MB).
If there is an issue with the latest 5.2 release, the 5.0 release is still available: Windows (18.6MB), Mac OS X (21.8MB), Linux 32bit (22.2MB), Linux 64bit (23.4MB), manual install (18.2MB), and source (18.2MB).
Giampiero Spezzano has created a larger deepsky catalog here. (Over 13,000 objects.) Place in the installation directory (Mac and Linux - e.g. /home/<user>/NightVision/) or the "Night Vision" folder in the user's documents folder (Windows). (Also available here, but this copy may not be as fresh.)
Installable packages are created with
BitRock InstallBuilder, a crossplatform installer builder.
Although Night Vision is targeted for astronomy enthusiasts, it is
certainly useful for other interests, e.g. astrology and religious
purposes.
In May 2010 ASTROLOGYWIZARD
featured this page for their
with the following kind words:
"It is straightforward, informative, intuitive, fully customisable and generally a joy to use."
You may Email me at:
Please prefix your Email subject line with [NV], as in
Subject: [NV] Like your program!so that it is easily distinguishable from SPAM and is less likely to get inadvertently deleted.
This page last updated January 29, 2021