Map of the Heavens

I have been using Starry Night for quite some time now. Almost three years if I am not mistaken. The package is very nice indeed, but a bit heavy for my old Celeron. I finally got tired of waiting an eternity for the screen to scroll.
Then I remebered a nifty package called Cartes du Ciel (CDC). CDC works on Linux and Windows. The core installer for the Windows version is around 9 MB. In addition you can download most of the standard catalogues. I'd recommend both the Hiparchos and the Tycho. If you are going to use it alongwith a telescope, I would also suggest a few of the deep sky ones. You might have to tweak the colour setting to your personal preferrences. I find the default to be very irritating.
Also if you are planning to install it on your laptop and take it outdoors there is a night vision mode is available.
One thing I find very nice is the ability to mark out telescope fields on the sky charts which makes it very easy to star hop to Messier Objects.
Enjoy your cloudless skies.

Here are some links:
Wiki Page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartes_du_Ciel
Home Page : http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/

Some Screenshots :

Telescope View

Night Vision Mode

Fractly Speaking

After using Photoshop for over three years I finally got tired of doing the same things to get a random fractal-like background. Credit for some of the frustration goes to DeviantArt.com
Seeing some of the work there I was crushed to note that my pseudo-complex designs just didn't match up.
Nonetheless with 2GB of RAM and a 2.2GHz dual core beckoning it was time to call in the big guns. Thats where I came across Apophysis. It generates amazing fractals in real-time on the basis of the transformation you select. Yes I know the description is a bit vague, but given that even I am a noob as far as this software is concerned I hope most of you guys will tolerate it.
Any way I strongly suggest downloading one of the newer (post 2.05) beta versions as most of the tutorials I found work with these.
Also to get an idea of what you can do with Apophysis I have uploaded 3 of my latest creations.

Enjoy :)

The Bedouin

The Lady in the Water(This was touched up in PS later)

Dancing Twins

A Song from Beyond

A few days back while I was reading up for my Maths quiz (MA108 for those interested) I remembered a song a friend had once referred me. Its called Simple Finite Group(of Order Two) by group called Klein4. I know April Fool's is already a week old and this is no joke. In fact I personally recommend you watch it. :)

Here's the link:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTby_e4-Rhg

If you want the lyrics. Here they are:
http://www.stanford.edu/~lekanw/random/music/simplefinite.html

No, its not a cruel joke. Personally I did find it quite funny.
Happy listening. ;)