Spectacular planetarium - Stellarium

When in school, college, the lengthy hours of (load shedding) power cuts in the evenings stealthily served a purpose - dragging us to the rooftop to gaze at the stars.

In Bangalore though, gazing at the stars is not quite the same because of the all the glow from the city side, even during a power cut. But here's a software that lets you browse through the spectacular objects in the space serving just like a planetarium but on your desktop!

What more, the software is as free as it gets (free as in freedom).

On Debian or Debian like GNU/Linux, all you have to do is this:
$apt-get install stellarium

to get it installed and running!

Note: The software is available for Windows and Mac users too.