Jeff:
> A while ago I tried out all the "free" or shareware planetarium
> programs.. cartes'du'ciel and Earth Centered Universe
More than any of the other packages I have lying around, I use Xephem. I'm
not sure if there's an MS port or not; I run it on Linux, BSD and ...
> (Fwiw, I'm using a PC laptop, though I wish I was using OSX.)
,,,there, too.
Starry Night is spectacular, and seems to do a good job. I also
have an old <registered> copy of MPJAstro that I keep around, partly
because it's blindingly fast to start, and partly because I'm nostalgic.
Xephem is an acquired taste, and free is a pretty good price, plus
you just gotta love software written by someone named Elwood Downey (one
of the blues brothers' cousins?) and published from a site called
http://clearskyinstitute.com/
d