There are many and varied observing tools available, from planetarium software, through astrophotography tools, to programs that allow you to fly through space in three dimensions. Many of these you have to pay for, but here we list a few that are free and extremely useful, working on most computer platforms. If you haven't tried them before you can't go far wrong with Stellarium and Celestia for starters!
Planetarium software attempts to create a rendition of the night-time sky, from a given position on Earth, allowing constellations, planets and deep-sky objects (such as galaxies and nebulae) to be explored on your own PC. They can be handy when planning your own observing:
Stellarium - Highly recommended beautifully realistic view of the night sky from anywhere on Earth
XEphem - Professional quality planetarium & ephemerides software from the Clear Sky Institute, (largely for MAC & unix, but can be made to work for free on a PC using something like Cygwin)
Sky View Café - Sky View Café is both a website, and a downloadable piece of software. The website is free to use and uses a Java applet to display the view of the sky over any location on Earth
Sky Globe - Simplistic planetarium software that's easy to use. Originally shareware from KlassM Software Inc., generally available from many internet sites if this link is broken
Software is available to fly through the universe in 3-D, explore our own galaxy in the same way and tour space using imagery from the very best space programmes:
Celestia - Fly through the visible universe, download plug-ins of all the latest space imagery, including the planets of our own solar system, exoplanets (those of other solar systems) and even black holes!
Celestia Motherlode - Download site for the greatest plug-ins/add-ons to make the most of Celestia
Where is M13? - A unique application that helps you visualize the locations and physical properties of deep sky objects in and around our own Galaxy
World Wide Telescope - Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based professional telescope projects
Virtual Moon Atlas - Explore all of the features of the Moon, from moutains, to rills and the mare (lava plains)
Google provide a number of free on-line tools (may need some Google Earth software, if not already installed on your PC) to explore our planet, it's neighbours and the night sky:
Google Sky - Shows the visible universe using a mosaic of images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Digitized Sky Survey and the Hubble Space Telescope. Also allows microwave and infra-red views and some historical information.
It is quite easy these days to use digital (or film) cameras to take your own images of the night-sky. Be it a compact, SLR or WebCam image or series of images (movie) there are many software programs that can help you to maximise the quality of the images you capture. This software usually requires some specialist knowledge to use effectively:
K3CCDTools Lite - Image capture software for all varieties of WebCam. The Lite version is free, although you need to periodically downlaod a security key to keep using it
Registax - Image processing software that, among other things, allows the stacking of frames from a WebCam movie
Deep Sky Stacker - Excellent software for stacking digital images to get crisp & fabulous results. Stacking software allows you to take shorter individual exposures but superimpose them to get a better overall result
Iris - Iris is both image viewing and processing software. It is not easy for a beginner to use, but is very useful for users of all abilities to view FITS files and convert them to other formats
The GIMP - The GIMP is comprehensive and powerful image processing software. From the website you will need at least the first two downloads and will need to install the GTK+2 Runtime Environment first
FITS Liberator - Developed by NASA, ESO & ESA this is a plugin for Photoshop Elements and Photoshop that allows it to import FITS files and manipulate professional telescope images
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