A while ago, I wrote about how to navigate the night sky. On a related note, here are a few applications that budding astronomers might enjoy.

Stellarium

Try the cross-platform open source program Stellarium. It renders the skies in realtime, which means that the skies will look exactly like what you see with your eyes, binoculars or small telescope.

Google Sky

Even better, Google Earth just added a “Google Sky” feature:

In the latest version of Google Earth, hit the “Switch between Sky and Earth” button on the toolbar to get a map of the night sky from your current location.

Several Sky layers are listed on the left-hand side, including Constellations, Backyard Astronomy, Hubble Showcase, The Moon, The Planets, User’s Guide to Galaxies and Life of a Star. The Sky layers are composed of over 1 million photographs from various scientific and academic sources.

Worldwide Telescope

Newest in the stargazer’s arsenal is Microsoft Research’s Worldwide Telescope, which looks absolutely spectacular. It uses Photosynth and Seadragon to create an interactive model of the sky, using high-resolution images from the Hubble telescope and other sources.