The US Navy uses this software to predict their morning and evening stars. Belive it or not, we are still required by Naval Regulations to fix the ship's position by celestial navigation. This has been my job for the last 12 years and I've become pretty good at it. We used to use the rude star finder to predict the visible planets and the HO pubs to get our 7 selected stars. The STELLA software takes the "mystery" out of predicting the night sky. I can type in the current position of the ship, her course and speed and the program will do all the other calculations for me. The end product is a color, interactive sky chart which gives declination and azimuth of the stars. It also shows the 7 selected stars for the night and the 3 expected to provide the most accurate fix (position).

We also use this software to compute the rising and setting of the sun and moon, either at a fixed site or while moving across the ocean.

I dont know if civilians have access to it or not, but even for someone who just wanted to know the names of the stars above his house, this is a great piece of software to have.