Searching for Constellations

In Stellarium 0.10.2, you _can_ search for constellations. You can also use the "Select single constellation only" option in Configuration/Tools.

I can think of only two situations when no constellations will appear as search hints:
- the language setting has been changed;
- the sky culture setting has been changed (e.g. you are trying to find Western constellations, but someone has set the sky culture to Egyptian).

I have the same problem with Stellarium 0.10.2. My language setting is Spanish, and I´m not able to find any constellation using the search feature (for example, typing "Virgo", "Andromeda", "Scorpio", "Geminis", etc, you don´t get any result. Sky culture is set to Western. Curiously, typing "Big Dipper" (the English name of "Ursa Maior", I think), Stellarium moves to a celestial location in the austral hemisphere, nothing to do with the true position ¿?

Would you do a test for me? Turn on constellation labelling (either by the tool bar button, or by pressing V). Try to search for one of the constellation names that you see.

The Big Dipper is the name of the characteristic asterism in Ursa Major, not the name of the constellation itself. In English, the Latin names of constellations are used.

The "BIG DIPPER" result you see is a result of an implicit search in the SIMBAD on-line astronomical database. It refers to a X-ray binary star and it is probably a nickname:
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-basic?Ident=BIG+DIPPER

Bogdan, the search window can´t find any constellation you can see in the sky, independently if you turn on or off the constellation labelling. I have tried both spanish and latin names. For example, "Osa Mayor" or "Ursa Major", "Tauro" or "Taurus", "Sagitario" or "Sagittarius", and so on. You can see, typing the first letters, that the search tool will not find them anyway.

OK, you are right respect of the "Big Dipper" issue.

I tried that, but until you go into the configuration window and check the
box "select single constellation" it won't work. The pain of it is that
you have to do this every time you use the program. Not very conducive in
a high school situation.

Angela Bergman
Earth & Space Science
Westside High School
8701 Pacific Street
Omaha, NE 68114
(402)343-2739

The "Use single constellation" setting can be saved by hitting the "Save settings" button on the "Main" tab of the "Configuration" window. This applies to a lot of other settings in Stellarium, too.

It can also be set by editing the config.ini file (on Windows, there's a shortcut to it in Stellarium's folder in Start Menu). The "flag_constellation_isolate_selected" field under "[viewing]" should be set to "true" (without the quotes).

Yea. High school students won't be doing that. They'd give up first.

I'm just trying to be helpful. I don't get paid to provide Stellarium support. I don't know what was the intended tone of your last comment, but I've just spent the last 15 minutes wondering how to answer. It's past midnight in my time zone, so most of the possible answers are not very even-tempered.

The search behavior appears to have been changed since 0.10.2, because in my development build constellations can be searched for without that option being switched on. The next version, 0.10.3, should be released by the end of the week.

If you and/or your students don't like Stellarium, you are free to use any other free or proprietary astronomy software available on the market. Here's a short list:
http://astro.nineplanets.org/astrosoftware.html

I still have the same problem, even using the "Use single constellation" setting. Whatever the settings you choose, the searching tool is unable to find any constellation. Applies also for Stellarium portable, both in Vista and XP.

On the other hand, Stellarium is one of the most impressive software i see in my life. ¡¡Well done!!. Don´t worry about ¿negative? comments. You know that most of the users of Stellarium are very happy and comfortable with it, and the comments we send you are in the way to improve, if it is possible, this incredible program. Go ahead.

Bogdan - I apologize for forgetting that tone does not transmit electronically! I hope you did not agonize too long or lose too much sleep. I appreciate your response in figuring out a solution for this question. It is programs like Stellarium that make learning meaningful and fun for students. My team and I agree with Carlos, Stellarium is the best program for what we need at our school. For being a part of that, I thank you. (My question was probably very petulant due to the facts that: #1 I have been spoiled by the magnificent prior releases and #2 I demand so much from my course and my students.)

I am very excited by the news of a new release. At our school, we have a 1:1 initiative and we are preparing next year's student disk image. I can't wait for that new version to be on it!