FOUND! Image from WIRED (see below)

If you’re looking for a pretty decent planetarium program for FREE.  Give Stellarium a try.  It’s been around for quite a while and it’s improved upon all the time.  You can do a lot with the program including writing your own scripts if you are a mind to.

One of the things I really like about Stellarium is the satellite passes, numerous times I’ve seen a satellite pass over head while at the scope and I’ve gone back and determined what it was.  Very nicely done.

The link is on this page, a wiki page with pretty much everything Stellarium, scroll down the page a little for the download link.  Even if you have a planetarium this is worth having anyways.  Hey, good planetarium programs are like BBQ grills, can’t have too many.

I got an email the other day asking if knew of a site that would allow the viewing of a constellation from the perspective of being in another constellation.  I have seen such a site, but can’t find the particular one I was looking for.  I did find a page at The Astronomy Nexus called the Distant Worlds Star Mapper, which will allow you to look at one star from another.  Just pick stars in the appropriate constellations.

None of the constellations will look the same as they do here as the constellations are nothing more than our human ability to put things into patterns.  There might not be a lot of change in what a constellation looks like within our solar system, but on the much larger scale we are talking about, that’s a whole other deal. If you have a link to a page along these lines pass them along in the comments, I’d like to see them and see if one is the particular one I was thinking of.

Finally there is the X-37B, the secret space plane launch about a month ago.  Well it’s been found and Heaven’s Above has pass data.  The weather here is rainy so I can’t verify their data, maybe this weekend.  If you have decent skies and have a scheduled pass, give it a look.