Have you heard the news? Astronomers have observed the early phase of an exploding star. It’s 2008d, the “ supernova caught in the act .” If you are in the science media, you can’t help having heard about it. For days, we’ve been in the midst of a blitz that would make the Luftwaffe envious. Fortunately, the supernova discoverers are firing press releases at us, not dropping bombs. At one point yesterday, I almost reached for my spam filter. As is...

There’s no better place to find astronomy related software than the web archive created by Astro Events Group of Ostend, Belgium. “Our compilation will actually never be complete,” says Patrick Jaecques, a member of the group. “We have updates about every week. It’s also the only part of our Dutch web site that is translated into French, German and English.” There you’ll find hundreds of programs for a wide variety of computing environments, including...