Another application I came across recently is Stellarium. It’s kind of like Google Earth… for space. Stellarium allows you to view the night (or day) sky in real time, tracking stars, planets, etc… and it’s very cool. You can also speed up time, and watch the sun, moon, stars, etc… zoom across your screen.
Stellarium is Open Source (free), and made for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
That is freaking cool! It’s extremely educational. Great reference, I can memorize ALL those constellations now with a program like this. WOW! Thanks Paul.