On June 24, version 26.2 of the popular free cross-platform planetarium was released. Stellarium — the second one this year.
The project is written in C++ using the Qt framework (supporting versions 5 and 6) and is distributed under the GNU GPL 2.0 license.
Key Improvements:
- new star names have been added according to the IAU classification, assigned since November 2025;
- star names designated only by Gaia numbers have been added according to IAU classification;
- a script command for the equation of time has been added;
- territory.geojson data for astronomical cultures has been added;
- the Yuan dynasty astronomical culture (China) has been added;
- a request for permission to access Android storage has been added;
- a workaround for incorrect GLSL sin and asin functions on Intel has been added;
- a new simplified atmospheric model has been added;
- multi-level plugin and data searching has been added;
- the ability to translate celestial coordinate system axis designations has been added;
- a utility for obtaining new orbital data elements from the JPL catalog for ssystem_major has been added, and orbital elements for satellites have been updated;
- visualization of star trails has been added (screenshot #3);
- the 'Common Names' tab in the 'SkyCultureMaker' plugin has been added;
- the missing part of the scripts documentation has been added;
- a filter to display only enabled reviews has been added;
- a new 'Planes' plugin has been added;
- map scaling support in the 'Location' dialog has been added;
- the Byzantine calendar has been added to the 'Calendars' plugin;
- AndroidManifest.xml and an icon have been added;
- support for building the main executable file for Android has been added;
- support for high-resolution mode in GLES3 has been added;
- a hook for the 'AstroCalc/Almanac' tool has been added, ensuring value updates when the date changes;
- context names for 3 constellations to avoid conflicts with minor planet names have been added;
- automatic data updates after toggling the decimal degrees flag in the 'AstroCalc/Positions' tool have been added;
- support for CelesTrak CSV files instead of TLE in the 'Satellites' plugin has been added;
- an additional name to the constellation information has been added, and the format for the SC editor in the 'Sky Culture Maker' plugin has been adjusted;
- new time steps for the 'AstroCalc/Ephemeris' tool have been added;
- support for periodic cycles has been added. index and tritos;
- Gamepad support added for the "Remote Control" plugin;
- Ability to assign SSO to multiple epochs added;
- Missing package for AppImage based on Qt6 added;
- Improvements made to the visualization of ephemeris;
- waitForKeypress() function added to support presentations using a Bluetooth remote;
- Many other improvements, bug fixes, and data updates (available in the first edition of the news).
Source: linux.org.ru
