The final frontier from your desktop
The latest issue of Popular Science magazine (online link to the story currently not available) mentions Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope, a free Windows astronomy program you'll be able to download soon. No specific date - Web site only indicates it will be ready sometime in the spring.
The Internet-connected software "accesses millions of digital images collected from powerful terrestrial and space-based telescopes to offer a pristine view of the celestial bodies, providing more detail than competitors such as Google Sky," according to Popular Science. Other cool stuff: includes easy-to-use software for creating downloadable astronomical tours with narration, music, text and photo overlays.
More from Popular Science: "We previewed sample tours by two early testers. One from a Harvard astrophysics professor explained stars from clouds of hydrogen and dust, and another from a six-year-old astronomy buff simply made us smile."
This sounds really cool, aside from being free, even for the non-space geek types among us.