Not sure about Photoshop but in GIMP you can use the "polar coords" option in the filters menu to turn something like this-

(that's me playing with my steel gazing globe)
into something like this-
looks like this in irrlicht-
Side note: I'm thinking
Autostitch is a much nicer, higher resolution way of doing things, but you have to credit the software if you use it and also I haven't figured out a way to make it wrap nicely with the brightness correction.
(Taken last night, I missed the rainbow and interesting cloud formations by 10 mins

.. but it was my first attempt )