Skylab

Crys in Modifier Setups

Overview

SkyLab is a Blender Geometry Nodes planetarium designed to create customizable representations of the night sky directly inside Blender.

It combines astronomical catalogue data with a fully procedural Geometry Nodes setup, allowing you to display stars, constellations, constellation artwork, celestial reference elements and Messier objects in a single scene.

SkyLab is designed for scientific visualization, education, illustration and artistic astronomy projects.

No Python script or external add-on is required to use the final setup.

Main Features

SkyLab includes:

  • A stellar sky based on astronomical catalogue data

  • Star brightness based on apparent magnitude

  • Star names

  • The 88 official constellations

  • Constellation line drawings

  • Constellation names

  • Stellarium Western constellation artwork

  • Messier deep-sky object

  • Observer latitude and longitude controls

  • Date and time controls

  • Local UTC offset

Most display parameters are directly accessible from the Geometry Nodes modifier.

Main Features

SkyLab includes:

  • A stellar sky based on astronomical catalogue data

  • Star brightness based on apparent magnitude

  • Star names

  • The 88 official constellations

  • Constellation line drawings

  • Constellation names

  • Stellarium Western constellation artwork

  • Messier deep-sky objects

  • Images for all 110 Messier objects

  • Celestial sphere reference elements

  • Celestial grid

  • Cardinal directions

  • Observer latitude and longitude controls

  • Date and time controls

  • Local UTC offset

  • Independent visibility controls for the main sky components

Most display parameters are directly accessible from the Geometry Nodes modifier.

Installation

Keep the supplied data folder next to the SkyLab .blend file.

The expected structure is:

SkyLab/
├── SkyLab.blend
├── README.txt
├── CREDITS.txt
└── data/
    ├── stars.csv
    ├── star_names.txt
    ├── connections.csv
    ├── constellation_names.csv
    ├── constellation_names.txt
    ├── constellation_artwork_lookup.csv
    ├── constellation_artwork_anchors.csv
    ├── messier.csv
    ├── messier_names.txt
    └── messier_images/
        ├── M001.jpg
        ├── M002.jpg
        ├── ...
        └── M110.jpg

Do not rename or reorganize the supplied data files unless you also update the corresponding paths inside the Geometry Nodes setup.

Using SkyLab

SkyLab is provided as a Geometry Nodes asset.

Once the asset is added to your scene, its main controls are available directly from the Geometry Nodes modifier.

Performance

SkyLab processes a significant amount of astronomical data and geometry.

Depending on your computer and on the enabled options, changing some Geometry Nodes parameters may require a short recalculation.

For better viewport performance:

  • Disable constellation artwork when it is not required

  • Reduce the number of displayed labels

  • Use magnitude filtering to reduce the number of visible stars

  • Disable Messier images when working on other elements

  • Enable only the components required for the current visualization

Final rendering performance depends on scene complexity and Blender settings.

Data Sources and Credits

SkyLab uses several publicly available astronomical datasets and resources, including:

  • Hipparcos-based stellar data

  • IAU star names

  • VizieR catalogue information

  • Stellarium constellation data

  • OpenNGC

  • ESA/Hubble imagery

  • 2MASS imagery

Third-party data, artwork and images retain their original licenses.

Complete attribution and license information is provided in the credits.txt file

$15

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Details
Published about 8 hours ago
Blender Version 5.2
Render Engine Used Cycles, Eevee
License Royalty Free

Crys

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constellations geometry nodes celestial sphere Stars scientific visualization night sky planetarium space procedural astronomy