Hey Eric, thanks for the tip and especially the details on getting the necessary flavour of Unix happening on a Mac. Sounds like a perfect project to tinker away with over the holidays. Just have to make sure the egg nog doesn't spill onto the keyboard. I wonder if KStars includes the red comet Rudolphus, due out of the Kriskringle constellation in about ten days.

On a less festive yet still intriguiging note, it would be cool if there were a publicly accessible and editable astronomy program that could be collectively authored and continually expanded and updated, like a Wiki of the stars.

[Bah humbug! There's no Santa, reindeer, elven, or even snowperson smilies on this forum! Is the war on Xmas more than a figment of Bill O'Reilly's evil delusions?]

Well, actually KStars is exactly that. It's an open source project which means that anyone with the skills and time can contribute. There are also some catalogs that people have written and added as well as a scripting language built in. Take a look at http://kde-files.org/?xcontentmode=643

Have fun!