Cristiano

A few weeks ago, technology blogger Robert Scoble posted an entry talking about a new innovative piece of software from Microsoft that actually moved him to tears. At the time, he was not able to discuss what it was - today he revealed the details.

It turns out that the software is something called World Wide Telescope, which allows users to see space in a way never before possible. It uses data from the Hubble telescope, as well as 10 other powerful scopes on earth to be able to provide unprecedented views beyond Earth. You are able to pick a point in the sky then zoom toward it - kind o the opposite of zooming in on your house on Google Maps, with much more detail.


More info is here and here.

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Persephone Milk

Wow, this is really exciting. Something like this could prove to be a great inspiration to children too. I remember when I first watched the Cosmos series and heard Carl Sagan say "billions and billions of stars" and not being able to conceptualize something so vast and wondrous as the universe. I audited two full Astronomy courses this summer and while it was fascinating, it is products like this that will tug at your soul and sense of place in the universe. I can see why he cried. Bravo Microsoft.

Reality Control

I hope his reaction was genuine. Scoble was employed by Microsoft for a long time and has continued to have a good relationship with them ever since, as indicated by him having insider access to this app before launch.

I'm not saying he's a shill but every time he's quoted concerning Microsoft I'm very wary.

Bard Jameson

Now this I would probably get addicted to. I lost interest in Google Earth pretty quickly. But to be able to study the sky from your desktop? Yes!

Persephone Milk

Well, let it be known that quite a few Microsoft products have made me cry over the years. And throw my mouse. I think I started to drink pretty heavily when Vista was released.

Joshua Nightshade

LEAVE VISTA ALONE.

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Persephone Milk

I'd like to, but unfortunately it's installed on my laptop.

<---- See?

Hiro Queso

You already can!

Stellarium

Stellarium is a great programme which allows you to explore the sky as viewed from your location - a planetarium, essentially. Much better than Google's offering.

Celestia: Home

Celestia is better for exploring the local universe in 3D. The view point is not from earth, but where ever you stick the cursor - this is great for getting a feel for the spatial distribution of astronomical objects around us, and you can zoom right out on a galactic scale.

You're not going to be wowed by any images in either of these programmes, and so they may not appeal to those not already interested in space sciences. I'm hoping that this is something that this WWT may address - the talk of wonderful images suggests it may. It would also be really cool if they had virtual filters, so to speak, so we could see stuff in UV, IR, Radio, etc.

Hiro Queso

Well from one of the links Cris has at the end of his post it appears we will be able to see stuff in non-vis!

I'm going to try not get too excited about this, as I was very disappointed with google sky.

Edav Nomad

The Spring beta for it is now available.

WorldWide Telescope

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Mukatsuku

If it doesn't bring me to orgasm within 5 minutes, I am demanding a refund!

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Mukatsuku

Hmm, so far I am extremely unimpressed certainly not the amazing thing of wonder that Google Earth was when it was released, and cetainly not something that could make me cry in awe and wonder. I now realise all those tiny blurs in the sky reveal themselves to be hi-res blurs in the sky when you zoom in. Not much detail at all, yet.

Robert Daguerre

Well I'm really impressed.

If you want to study the Earth, Google Earth is better.

If you want to study large scale star maps, there are better applications.

But this application offers so much that is not available in another application - sky surveys, images from hubble, spitzer, and chandra, wmap images, etc, all pasted to a 3D sky.

I didn't expect much of it, so I am pleasantly surprised.

Vivianne Draper

hahahahahahaha wait till he sees how much Microsoft wants to charge for it -- that'll really make him cry!



(disclaimer: I do software asset management, licensing and compliance for a living for a really large company of 100K+ users. My speciality is Microsoft licensing. Microsoft makes me cry on a pretty much daily basis and they don't even have to make new applications to do it!)

Mukatsuku

I'm the opposite - I was expecting a lot more hi-res imagery from it, and I don't like the way the planets aren't visible until you zoom really close in - I can see Venus and Mars just by standing outside my house, yet on this I need to zoom in loads before I can even see them as a speck of light.

Cristiano

I was incredibly impressed by it as well. I spent several hours yesterday playing around with and going through some of the guided tour. I did feel a sense of wonder looking at it all - it didn't make me weep, but I definitely think it is very well done and quite innovative.

Love

Yeah! It might break!

Robert Daguerre

It definitely needs a LOT of polishing, and yes I noticed that about the planets too (they could learn something from Stellarium) - hopefully they will fix that. But despite that, I like it, I particularly love the wealth of info available & the concept in general.

So it's pretty rough and ready at the moment, but taking into consideration it is beta, I am impressed. I think it has superb potential, and I really hope they take the obvious steps required (mostly work on accuracy, rendering, more seamless, more user friendly, etc) to realise its potential and turn it into something amazingly cool.

Mukatsuku

Don't get me wrong, I do like it - just when someone is literally brought to tears from amazement, I really expected something revolutionary, but it's certainly not the leap lorwards that google earth was

Robert Daguerre

I agree, the wow factor was totally exaggerated. I suppose I am impressed because I didn't expect much from it (though that is not the only reason!) - I didn't think much of google sky (though google earth is great) at all, and I was expecting something similar. I think they wouldn't be doing much wrong by taking a good hard look at Stellarium - they have rendered the night sky perfectly. If they added that to the wealth of data/images they already have, it really would be WOW.

Persephone Milk

I am really impressed with it. I haven't been moved to tears yet, but it does create a sense of wonder about the universe and our place within it. Zooming in on a point of light and seeing it resolve into a galaxy is a lot of fun. The guided tours are wonderful, and it appears there are tools for the community to create their own tours. I did find that the resolution of some of the images was disappointing ... but I noticed in the guided tours comments that would only really make sense of the resolution was higher ... so perhaps in this beta version they have limited some of the content.

I like the Martian panoramas. There is enough detail in them to have Richard Hoagland searching for alien artifacts for weeks

Mukatsuku

無料

Mukatsuku

Switching off "show planets as actual size" makes them visible to the naked eye (so to speak)

Persephone Milk

I think their intention is to make it available for free.

WorldWide Telescope Brings Space Exploration to Earth: A service free of charge from Microsoft lets students and lifelong learners tour the night sky using high-resolution images from the world’s best land- and space-based telescopes.