This Virtual Moon Atlas provides comprehensive information about the Moon. The atlas has been downloaded over 1.8 million times worldwide. It is used in books, foreign observatories, by researchers, websites, television programs, and astronomical magazines. It is also used by the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of the NELIOTA program and is recommended by the French Ministry of Education.
About the Virtual Moon Atlas
This program was developed by Patrick Chevalley and Christian Legrand and allows to visualize the appearance of the Moon for any date and time. It also allows to control telescopes with computerized mounts and to study in detail the lunar formations, using a database with over one million entries and an extensive image library with almost 9000 photos compiled by Christian Legrand.
The program is designed to be easy to use, especially “in the field”, depending on the particular requirements of an observation, but also to be able to study “at the desk” the Moon and its relief. It is associated with the freeware “Cartes du Ciel”, developed by Patrick Chevalley. This dataset is undoubtedly one of the most complete on the market. Note also that the Virtual Moon Atlas is completely “autonomous” and does not require an Internet connection for its operation.
Screenshots and Manual
The authors invite you to take a look at the screenshots and the manual (also in PDF format) as well as the quick start guide to get a more detailed idea of the possibilities. The Virtual Moon Atlas was developed to meet the needs of most lunar observers. However, it is also intended as a tool for people who are personally or professionally interested in selenography. The authors are determined to continue developing the software and add new features. However, if you think that a useful feature is missing, please let the authors know. It might be possible to add it in a future version.
Why is it free?
The Virtual Moon Atlas is the result of the collaboration between Christian Legrand and Patrick Chevalley. The authors make it available free of charge to the general public, amateur astronomers, lunar observers or photographers, and students who wish to approach selenography and professional astronomy. In this way, they hope to promote observation and knowledge of our satellite, which represents one of the next stages in human exploration of space.
Terms of use
The “Virtual Moon Atlas” is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, without even an implicit guarantee of MERCHANTABILITY or CONFORMITY TO A PARTICULAR USE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Textures, scientific layers, database information, and images are subject to third-party copyrights and can only be used with the Virtual Moon Atlas, whose authors have obtained permission to use them.
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