A free planetarium that shows the sky from any place at any date and time, and can speed time up or run it backwards.
Interactive Transform
Pairs set Stellarium to London, Edinburgh and Makkah on different dates, find where the sun sits at the times that define Fajr and Isha, and explain why British mosques use different timetables in midsummer.
Pairs set Stellarium to sunset in Mecca, London and Jakarta on the evenings after the new moon of 17 February 2026, record the crescent's position, and use the results to weigh local sighting, following the Saudi announcement, and calculation.
Passive Transform
The teacher sets Stellarium to St Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on the evening of 29 February 1504 and runs time forward so the class watches the eclipsed Moon rise, then tests Ferdinand Columbus's account of how his father used it.
The teacher runs a whole lunar month over the school's town in Stellarium in two minutes, stopping at every eighth of the cycle, and Grade 3 name the fractions and find that the 'first quarter' Moon is 2/8 of the way round.
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.