Users can focus on deep-sky objects and, most usefully, simulate the effects of Earth’s atmosphere to show a more realistic-looking night sky. This free and open source planetarium software is one of the most comprehensive with new versions looking ever more polished. The Distant Nature web site has been used for one year with Tarrant County College astronomy students and is now available for use by other institutions. A variety of activities are available to support two semesters of introductory astronomy. Also on the web site, students can access the instructions and worksheets associated with the various Stellarium based activities. A web site was developed for the Distant Nature activities having a set version of Stellarium that students can download and install on their own computers. Stellarium is a simple, yet powerful, program that is available in formats that run on a variety of operating systems (Windows, Apple, linux). To provide stability to the process, faculty at Tarrant County College have developed a set of laboratory exercises, entitled Distant Nature, using free open source Stellarium software. Changes in software and activity curriculum often translate into increases costs for students and the college. The software updates also sometimes occur out of sync with college textbook adoption deadlines. However, commercial planetarium software often is updated on a different schedule from the textbook revision and new edition schedule. Most of the major textbook publishers have an option of bundling planetarium software and even laboratory activities using such software with textbooks. Educational activities can be designed to utilize the capabilities of the software to display the sky, coordinates, motions in the sky, etc., in order to learn basic astronomical concepts. Planetarium programs can be used to provide a valuable learning experience for introductory astronomy students.

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