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