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Microsoft Research Open Sources WorldWide Telescope
kfogel writes: Microsoft Research has open sourced WorldWide Telescope, releasing it under the MIT license and donating the code to the .NET Foundation. The code is up on GitHub at github.com/WorldWideTelescope, and there are demos and more details at WorldWideTelescope.org. Go forth and explore!
About
The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a visualization environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the world’s best ground- and space-based telescopes for the exploration of the universe. WWT blends terabytes of images, information, and stories from multiple sources into a seamless, immersive, rich media experience. Explorers of all ages will feel empowered to explore and understand the cosmos using WWT’s simple and powerful user interface.
Source: their website.
Is it just Google Earth for stars?
You mean like http://www.google.com/sky
It falls under the category of planetarium software. The WWT user guide has more information. This kind of software is often used when you're curious to find out what's overhead on a given evening. These programs take the place of finder charts if you need to manually point the telescope. If it supports telescope connections (which WWT does) you can use it to point, click and point your telescope (some programs such as TheSky even have an option for satellite tracking). You typically can define field of views for your imaging cameras (e.g. to make sure there's a decent guide star). These programs come in useful for old school photometry when you're looking for a suitable comparison and check star. And there's the giant pictures, tours and classroom stuff as well.