Check out the stars tonight … even inside … get Stellarium!
A ten-gallon hat tip to Chris for posting about this. I love looking at the stars. But no matter how hard I try there are only few constellations that I can recognize right off the bat. I even earned my Astronomy merit badge in Scouts. That doesn’t stop me from gazing and wondering. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to teach my kids about the stars and planets. Well thanks to Chris … I can do it any time I want, and then go outside at night and really see what’s going on! Thanks to Stellarium. This app is just freakin’ amazing. It runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It’s free. And the graphics, OMG. The graphics are just unreal, rather, very real. Everything you’d want to explore the night sky. Set where you are, draw the constellations for you. Rotate to the direction you’re facing. Zoom into distant galaxies.
I downloaded it and I have to just put it away. I could play all day. I can’t wait until sunset (which is pretty late up here right now), take my laptop out on the porch and just check out the stars. If it’s cloudy, I’ll stay inside and check out the stars!
Think about it, warm summer night, out with the kids in the yard or the park, or where ever. Checking out the constellations, planets, galaxies. Name them, make your own up. Oh this is science at it’s best.
I could just wax poetic about it for a while … teachers, students, homeschoolers, just, man it’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. Just get it.
Tags: astronomy, constellations, planets, stars, Stellarium, stargazing
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[...] Since Tris put a post on Stellarium on his blog I thought I would introduce you to this site. It has a different astronomy picture everyday and also explains what you are looking at as well. Here is todays pic of the day and the explanation from the site. [...]