Thursday, February 28, 2008

WorldWide Telescope: A spring gift from Microsoft Research

Microsoft is delivering the universe this spring, dedicated to the memory of Jim Gray.

WWTelescope Frequently Asked Questions

... The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground- and space telescopes to enable seamless, guided explorations of the universe. WorldWide Telescope, created with Microsoft®'s high-performance Visual Experience Engine™, enables seamless panning and zooming across the night sky blending terabytes of images, data, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a media-rich, immersive experience...

I remember when Planetaria were high tech -- "... planetarium projection apparatus uses a hollow ball with a light inside, and a pinhole for each star, hence the name "star ball".

Yes, back then I liked to go and watch a fancier version of a flashlight in a tin can.

Now we have Google Sky, and soon we'll have the WorldWide Telescope.

Weird.

I'd like to hook the WWTelescope to a big HDTV and a remote control ...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now there is a man after my own heart! 53 inches of HD star power on sure beats my binoculars that mist up as soon as I take them to my eyes. I tried to watch the eclipse the other night, foggy at best, or was it the freshly made Grappa?

The roaring back yard fire made up for the foggy view though.

Alan

Anonymous said...

Now there is a man after my own heart! 53 inches of HD star power on sure beats my binoculars that mist up as soon as I take them to my eyes. I tried to watch the eclipse the other night, foggy at best, or was it the freshly made Grappa?

The roaring back yard fire made up for the foggy view though.

Alan

JGF said...

I suppose we could mount the HDTV view of WWTelescope above o the fireplace...