[1]

I'm probably (as usual) the last person in the world to get on to this - but I've just discovered the joys of Google Sky.  Google Earth is great of course, but once the shock of discovery has faded, it's a bit like a really excellent atlas. Google Sky, however,  is like - well, it's like being at the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, barking orders at [2] Uhura.  ('Uhura, sack the designer who made us these skin tight jumpers!!')   It's a magical mystery tour of space, with a Hubble Catalogue of colour photographs of amazing galaxies on edge, or shaped like pinwheels.  It's a marvel, downloadable for free, and out there.

I wish I'd had this when I wrote Debatable Space; I'd never have finished the first draft, but oh what fun!

There are links to other extraordinary places too, such as the site devoted to [3] Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, an account of the life's work of an eccentric but brilliant astronomer who studies, er, peculiar galaxies. Or [4] this site, which takes you on a virtual tour of black holes. 

If you're the other person in the world who didn't know about this - download Google Earth 4.2, go to View, click on Switch to Sky