I found two really cool astronomy software available to install from Fedora Core's package manager. So I thought I might get back into amatuer astronomy again. The first is a sofisticated desktop planetarium for Linux,OSX, and Windows called Stellarium.
My Meade telescope came with planetarium software however it was only for Windows and not Linux so it was nearly unusable. Stellarium is cross-platform and chock full of really cool features. I really like the rendering of the atmosphere.
The second application is called Celestia. While Celestia is not very helpful with amatuer astronomy. It is good for nights when you need your astronomy fix and it's raining outside. What Celestia does is very cool.
Where Stellarium and other planetarium software keeps your feet planted on the ground, Celestia puts you in a virtual spaceship and allows you to span the known universe in real time. It is pretty spetacular. You can see what the Earth looks like at night. You can see what a solar eclipse looks like from space. Travel to Mars and see a martian sunrise.
If you go to the supplemental archive of addons at Celestia Motherlode, you can download extra models like Columbia and Atlantis. You can even add fictional spacecraft from Star Wars and Star Trek if you want.
Keep Looking up! - Jack Horkheimer
