These programs let you reproduce astronomical events that happened thousands of years ago. Plan for the next solar eclipse, or just see what’s “up” tonight— all with amazing accuracy. Many desktop sky simulation programs can simply show you where the Moon is on a particular night, but with these powerful programs you can time the disappearance of a bright star behind the moving edge of the Moon, reproduce the 2 BC conjunction of Jupiter and Venus to within a few minutes, and see Venus pass in front of the Sun, as Captain Cook saw it from Tahiti in 1769.

The programs are as beautiful as they are powerful. In their photo-realistic representations of planets and moons, the stars really look like stars, and trees on Earth’s horizon cast moving shadows as the Sun moves across the sky. The program’s ease of use encourages idle celestial tourism and late night exploring of the solar system.

The celestial navigator can select the constellations to be outlined and identified. The position and altitude of any body can be read out automatically. For that matter, angles between any two bodies can be read out with the handy “dividers” in the toolbox. As a navigator you will appreciate the realism of measuring upwards from an actual horizon (either land or sea) to a star, moon, sun, or planet. Select different heights of eye, and it will be accounted for.

All programs come with a 192 page printed Starry Night Companion book guiding you to an understanding of the night sky. All programs require either Windows XP/VISTA/Win7 (32 or 64 bit) or Mac OSX 10.3 or higher.