Stellarium: A Desktop Planetarium

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.

It’s a free software that renders the sky from a configurable position. The application, available for Windows, Mac and Linux, creates an immersive environment thanks to the 3D full-screen rendering and the realistic photos. Stellarium lets you see stars, constellations, planets, nebulas and is a great way to learn their names. You can search the name of a planet or star and the application even auto-completes it for you.

You're the master of time, so you can make it run slower, faster or even stop it; you're the master of space, so you can change the position to anywhere you want; you can also control the events by running or recording scripts that simulate eclipses or other astronomical events.

It's very refreshing to use it as a virtual telescope that teaches you to look at the sky and to understand more from its mystery.