There's a new version (6/6/07) of the freeware planetarium program Stellarium, version 0.9.0. It has some interesting new features, including the ability to fly directly to a selected planet or moon (though you won't see the object you flew to - best to jump to Phobos if you want to see Mars up close). There's also the ability to use a much larger star catalog, which you must locate and download separately (hint: go to the downloads page on Sourceforge, cancel the download if necessary, and select "Browse all files" on the download tab).It looks a bit better than the 0.8 version, though it seems to me the planets are now oversized - maybe this is a scale setting somewhere that I haven't found yet. There are more settings not in the GUI, many with single key commands you will find in the manual. But those are little things. As with previous versions, it's a fantastic planetarium program with an easy zoom and pan interface and atmospheric effects that make the sky look very much like what you see outside. And it's free!
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