www.stellarium.org

Stellarium is a rare gem of a program that allows you to see the night sky from the comfort of your computer in 3D.  There are a bunch of other programs that allow you to see the stars (Google Earth’s Sky feature and MS’s World Wide Telescope), but none compare to the rich features that Stellarium offers. Some of these features include: photo realistic atmospheres (that are customizable), sunsets/sunrises.  You can even set your location and see live mapping of the stars that are currently in your part of the night sky.  Other cool features are skinable landscapes (oceans, mountains, forests, fields..etc), telescope controls, twinkling stars, shooting stars, milky way, nebula’s, solar system objects, simulated eclipses, zodiac images that apply to the stars, the ability to fast forward and go back in time, and alot more. Watch as the earth rotates around the stars when you fast forward the hours. All zoomable and in 3D.

Get ready to loose hours on end watching the night sky or day. Check out their website at www.stellarium.org. Works on windows,macs and linux systems.