Too cold outside for stargazing? Do it at your desk.

There are a lot of reasons (or excuses) for not going stargazing. Too cold, expense of telescopes, light pollution.

Although there really isn't any substitute for you or your children seeing the sky's wonders "in the flesh" so to speak, there are some tools that allow you to do it in comfort and for free.

Celestia and Stellarium are desktop planetarium packages. Celestia allows you to venture your viewing perspective beyond Earth. Stellarium is an open source project available for a range of operating systems.

NASA too have an application called Eyes on the Solar System, which allows you to venture beyond our planet - with the added bonus of accurately tracking every single one of their current and past space missions!

And if you'd like to get into Mars a bit more, then try out HiView - a new tool for touring Mars high resolution imagery and data.

via @reallyedbrown @pattyjansen and @MarsRovers