Looking to explore the night sky but don’t want to break the bank on expensive astronomy software? Look no further! In this post, I’ll explore some, but not all, of the top open source and freeware software options for amateur astronomers.  Discover all the features and tools you need to take your imaging to the next level without spending a dime.

There are plenty of fantastic and expensive software applications that provide “free trials” of 30-90 days before they entice you to pay for a license to continue to use them. And that’s fine.  If you don’t pay they’ll just make using them difficult by shutting off critical functionality or locking you out altogether until you do pay. I get it. You got to pay to play!  But these software titles below are all free to download and use with no restrictions, but please understand that most of these will also have an option to “donate or contribute” money to those hard working folks that have spent hours of their time to bring these “free” applications to you.

So if you find yourself repeatedly using one or several of these applications I highly encourage you to do as I have done – show them some love, hit the donate button and contribute to their cause.