open source astronomy s/w

[janischaffin]

http://stellarium.org/

[Leif Husman]

I saw this and was going to write "stellarium" but you beat me to it. I had to open it to see what those two planets were hanging close to the horizon (Jupiter and Venus). The app has so much info though, that my 256 Mb laptop took forever to open it. I got 1 G for $7 though for which I eagerly await...

Another cool astronomy project is Galaxy Zoo. Automated telescopes have taken pictures of millions of galaxies. The robots, however are incapable of classifying them. This project lets you see a galaxy, classify it, see another, etc. etc. It's mildly addictive and you get to take part in real science.


rK