Photos: Microsoft beams outer space to the desktop

Star gazing at home

By Andy Smith, 19 May 2008 16:45

Microsoft has released a free public beta of its WorldWide Telescope, which is software that lets both amateur and professional stargazers explore the universe from their PCs.

The WorldWide Telescope is a rich web application that accesses high-resolution images taken by ground- and Earth-orbiting telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

The main screen of the WorldWide Telescope contains stars visible to the human eye that are mapped into constellations. You can navigate with your mouse in any direction and zoom in or out with its scroll wheel. Here you can see that the edge of the Big Dipper's cup does indeed point to Polaris or the North Star, which is located at the plus sign.

Photo credit: Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope

Comments

There are 2 comments. Join the discussion

  1. 1. GALLEY SLAVE#41

    An addictive toy! works very well but needs to be improved a lot before it would be taken seriously by amateur or professional stargazers.
    But I think I will keep it.

  2. 2. GALLEY SLAVE#41

    Works just fine. RECOMMENDED

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