Astronomically good software

By chance I was looking at the new Dell forum called Idea Lab, mostly because it seems to have been overrun with Linux zealots who seem very interested in telling Dell all about the benefits of open source software and Windows-free and pre-installed Linux systems. Not that I'm against any of that - I am wondering what Dell is thinking right now, probably having daily meetings on how to quietly bury the idea lab without anyone noticing is my guess :-)

But one of the upshots of this was I noticed a post from someone who wanted pre-installed Open Source software on even Windows based machines, instead of proprietary stuff like MS Office. A couple of the applications they mentioned were Stellarium and Celestia. Being a bit of an astronomy nut in my youth (I used to have a telescope and go stargazing) I went off to check out these applications because, shame on me, I'd never heard of them before.

Lets just say I was very surprised to find that both apps were both amazingly, nay astronomically (pun intended) good software. The both gave different but beautiful perspectives on the night sky and universe, and even better had very professional and high quality ports for the Windows platform as well as Linux, and run on MacOS. Even if you are not into astronomy I think these are Google Earth level "awesome" apps that are a "must have" for any self respecting computer owner who wants to show non-techies the wonders of modern desktop computer power.