Planetarium/Space Exploration Software - 10 Yr-old

My 10 year old nephew is very interested in astronomy and space exploration. . .more space exploration right now, but is still amazed by astro-photos. Since he is a budding computer-geek, I thought I'd get him some CD/DVD software that had great graphics, movies, etc., that was fun and educational. I know there are a couple great planetarium products out there, but I think he'd enjoy something that focused more on space exploration, NASA history (missions, images,and movies, etc.) Any suggestions?

Jason

If you want more history and such look at the NASA websites and http://www.astronomydaily.com/index.asp for current astro event kind of things and very simple sky charts.

If you want a home-based start charting program that may be a bit challenging (but not more so that many others and many kids these days will take it as a piece of cake):

Chartes de Ciel - (look on the web).

It's FREE and it can be configured from mild ("realistic" looking bitmap stars and simple plaitarium vews/interface) to wild (many large star/specialty data bases you can load, interface to Deepsky 2002 for really in-depth searches and observation lists, load and overlay images from ESA and NASA sky surveys, etc.). It also has a "daily event" and sunrise/sunset lists that are helpful all the normal search options (Planets, deep-sky, stars).. It can be warped back or forward in time 10,000 years or so (want to see what the Wise-men saw while they were looking for Jesus? No problem, just set the date to 3 BC or so and antimate the view back and forth a few years in either direction ... things like that).

It will take some setting up, but the install on later Win 2000/XP class systems is not bad. You do have to put in your home Lat;Long and time-zone parameters and such to set it up. But this application is the equal to many (I might say any I've see) more costly programs you can buy. It's a labor of love by many world-wide ATM's types who program and it shows. And (did I mention?) it's FREE, so you don't have to cry too much if it does not work out - just do the included un-install to remove it.

My cheap two cents - TM