Stellarium

Have you ever wanted a good astronomy application and didn't want to pay a lot of money?

Stellarium is what you want. Go to http://www.stellarium.org/ to download it. It is free and a great program. The other day when we were camping I was pretty sure the bright object in the sky to the south west was Jupiter, but wasn't for sure. Last night I checked it out on Stellarium and sure enough it is. I also couldn't find the little dipper or Polaris (the North star). I know 2 of the stars in the big dipper pointed to it, but wasn't sure which ones. With Stellarium I found that it was the 2 stars on the end of the dipper that point north to Polaris which is part of the little dipper. But because of the light of the city, it is hard to see.

It might run slow on a low end system, so it might not be for everyone. But just so you know, it does run on Windows 7.