PlanetWatch is an entertaining and educational shareware program featuring an atlas of the solar system with a very nice sky chart of the region +/- 30 degrees, or the region of the sky containing the ecliptic.
This web site from a Brazilian astronomy site has both:
SKYGLOBE ASTRONOMY SOFTWARE WINDOWS
It is available on many sites on the Internet as the DOS version, but is very hard to find as the Windows version. SkyGlobe, however, does not have the vast array of features that Home Planet or Sky Charts have. Explore how all the keyboard letter and function keys, and ctrl B and alt B, change the display. It is excellent for giving the user a real understanding of how the stars and planets track across the sky, as you can set the sky in motion by tapping the "A" on the keyboard. SkyGlobe, especially in the DOS version, is very simple and easy to use, with almost no inputs or adjustments needed. It is the planetarium program which will give you the most accurate feeling of sitting under the night sky or in a true planetarium. SkyGlobe is a shareware program widely available on the Internet, available as both a DOS based and Windows based version. This month, I will present and compare several other freeware and shareware planetarium and sky charting programs for Windows available on the the Internet. In my last article, I wrote about a freeware planetarium program called Home Planet.