Explore the universe. Free.
Open-source astrovisualization software built for planetarium domes, classrooms, and personal computers.
Windows · Linux (source)
Platforms
Windows
Pre-compiled binary for Windows 10 and newer. Includes the application and all data for the default profile. Additional profiles download on first launch.
Linux
No pre-compiled binary for Linux. Source code is freely available on GitHub — build instructions are in the documentation.
MacOS support OpenSpace is using OpenGL as our graphics pipeline, which Apple has deprecated a number of years ago. The way they still support it on M-class chips is a separate conversion layer that transforms the OpenGL calls into Metal 3 (the Apple-specific graphics API) before it gets executed by the GPU cores on the M-class chips. Apple decided not support double precision floating point operations (Spec Section 2.1) which is used everywhere in OpenSpace to get enough precision for the whole universe. Additionally, Apple has not updated they OpenGL implementation in the past 10+ years and supporting that old OpenGL standard was slowing down users on Windows and Linux. As of version 0.22.0 OpenSpace now targets OpenGL 4.6 which has resulted in a 3-4x performance improvements for Windows and Linux uses at the cost of not being able to support MacOS anymore.
System requirements
Minimum
- CPU
- Intel Core i5 or equivalent
- GPU
- NVIDIA GTX 1060 or comparable
- RAM
- 8 GB
- VRAM
- 4 GB
- OS
- Windows 10/11 or Linux
Recommended
- CPU
- Modern Intel Core i7 / AMD Ryzen 7
- GPU
- NVIDIA RTX 3070 or better
- RAM
- 16 GB or more
- VRAM
- 6 GB or more
- OS
- Windows 10/11 or Linux
Before you install
Windows C++ Redistributable
OpenSpace requires the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2022. A copy is included in the downloaded folder. If you see “VCRUNTIME140_1.dll was not found,” install it to resolve the error.
Network access
OpenSpace will request internet access on first launch — a standard Windows security prompt. Granting permission is required for full functionality, including the user interface and live data features.
Updating from a previous version
Use the lightweight download if you’re updating an existing installation. Copy your sync and user folders from the previous version into the new OpenSpace directory.
Need help getting started?
The documentation covers installation, profiles, and configuration. The OpenSpace community on Slack is also here to help.