BBC - Virtual telescope opens night sky

Twirling galaxies, exotic nebulae and exploding stars are now just a
mouse click away for amateur astronomers.

Microsoft has launched WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that stitches
together images from some of the best ground- and space-based
telescopes.
Collections include pictures from the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes,
as well as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

The web-based tool also allows users to pan and zoom around the
planets, and trace their locations in the night sky.

"Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation
clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover
the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years
ago," explained Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics.

"[It's] a beautiful platform for explaining and getting people excited
about astronomy, and I think the professional astronomers will come to
use it as well," said Roy Williams of the California Institute of
Technology

More at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7397811.stm

wrote in message
...
Twirling galaxies, exotic nebulae and exploding stars are now just a
mouse click away for amateur astronomers.

Microsoft has launched WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that stitches
together images from some of the best ground- and space-based
telescopes.
Collections include pictures from the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes,
as well as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

The web-based tool also allows users to pan and zoom around the
planets, and trace their locations in the night sky.

"Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation
clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover
the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years
ago," explained Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics.

"[It's] a beautiful platform for explaining and getting people excited
about astronomy, and I think the professional astronomers will come to
use it as well," said Roy Williams of the California Institute of
Technology

More at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7397811.stm

I notice they recommend 2G Ram and 1 - 10Gig spare HDD space.
Seems excessive - oh, silly me, it's a Microsoft product!

"OG" wrote:

I notice they recommend 2G Ram and 1 - 10Gig spare HDD space.
Seems excessive - oh, silly me, it's a Microsoft product!

Nah, I've seen much more heinus bloatware from Adobe and Apple.
I've seen WWT work great on a system that doesn't even meet the
minimum requirements..

On or about 2008-05-14,
Tom Jarrett illuminated us with:



"OG" wrote:

I notice they recommend 2G Ram and 1 - 10Gig spare HDD space.
Seems excessive - oh, silly me, it's a Microsoft product!

Nah, I've seen much more heinus bloatware from Adobe and Apple.
I've seen WWT work great on a system that doesn't even meet the
minimum requirements..

I've not tried to install it yet. How does it compare with Google
Earth's sky mode?

--
Mark
Real email address |
is mark at | Is "tired old cliche" one?
ayliffe dot org |

Tom Jarrett wrote:
"OG" wrote:
I notice they recommend 2G Ram and 1 - 10Gig spare HDD space.
Seems excessive - oh, silly me, it's a Microsoft product!

Nah, I've seen much more heinus bloatware from Adobe and Apple.
I've seen WWT work great on a system that doesn't even meet the
minimum requirements..

Works fine on my P4 system (though it *does* have 2GB). Just with a
quick look around I see there is a problem with the DSS overlay; look
near Sirius, or on the Lepus/Orion boundary for example.

--
Abo

"OG" wrote in message
...

I notice they recommend 2G Ram and 1 - 10Gig spare HDD space.
Seems excessive - oh, silly me, it's a Microsoft product!

Honestly, if they under-estimated the specs you'd have a go at them for that
too I suppose.

Install size is about 28MB here (cached images are at about 300MB now). Its
currently using about 250MB of RAM.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
http://www.dasmirnov.net/

*Replace nospam with smirnov to reply by e-mail*

"Mark Ayliffe" wrote in message
...

I've not tried to install it yet. How does it compare with Google
Earth's sky mode?

Much better IMO. Apparently its got more data than Google Earth, although I
haven't come across anything that one is obviously lacking compared to the
other so far, it's definitely got more sky surveys and the default ones are
better processed and cleaned up on WWT.

The tours feature is actually really good, not a gimmick like I was
expecting. I've put together a couple of quick tours while playing around
with it and thats easy to do.

The main thing however is how well the application feels, you pan around the
sky smoothly flowing, it flows nicely when zooming, its just far more
polished in that regard.

Although the servers seems to be under a bit of load at the moment it is
taking a while to load images compared to yesterday.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.dasmirnov.net/

*Replace nospam with smirnov to reply by e-mail*

"Paul Smith" wrote in message
...
"OG" wrote in message
...

I notice they recommend 2G Ram and 1 - 10Gig spare HDD space.
Seems excessive - oh, silly me, it's a Microsoft product!

Honestly, if they under-estimated the specs you'd have a go at them for
that too I suppose.


What makes you think that?

On or about 2008-05-14,
Paul Smith illuminated us with:


"Mark Ayliffe" wrote in message
...

I've not tried to install it yet. How does it compare with Google
Earth's sky mode?

Much better IMO. Apparently its got more data than Google Earth, although I
haven't come across anything that one is obviously lacking compared to the
other so far, it's definitely got more sky surveys and the default ones are
better processed and cleaned up on WWT.

The tours feature is actually really good, not a gimmick like I was
expecting. I've put together a couple of quick tours while playing around
with it and thats easy to do.

The main thing however is how well the application feels, you pan around the
sky smoothly flowing, it flows nicely when zooming, its just far more
polished in that regard.

Although the servers seems to be under a bit of load at the moment it is
taking a while to load images compared to yesterday.

Thank you. I'll give it a go, when I have a tuit.

--
Mark
Real email address | The reason most people play golf is to wear clothes they
is mark at | would not be caught dead in otherwise. -Roger Simon
ayliffe dot org |

OG wrote:
"Paul Smith" wrote in message
...
"OG" wrote in message
...

I notice they recommend 2G Ram and 1 - 10Gig spare HDD space.
Seems excessive - oh, silly me, it's a Microsoft product!
Honestly, if they under-estimated the specs you'd have a go at them for
that too I suppose.


What makes you think that?


Is there any way of showing the direction (n,s,e,w) of the display, i
know there is the globe at the bottom right, but it would be nice to see
the cardinal points i think

Phill