A New Way to Stargaze via the WorldWide Telescope

May 13, 2008

Maybe it's time to get a new telescope or upgrade for the future in another way?

According to a report in today's New York Times, the skies may be the next frontier in travel, but not even the wealthiest space tourist can zoom out to, say, the Crab Nebula, the Trapezium Cluster or Eta Carinae, a star 100 times more massive than the Sun and 7,500 light-years away.

But those far, far away places and thousands of others can now be toured and explored at the controls of a PC, with the constellations, stars and space dust displayed in vivid detail and animated imagery.

The project, the WorldWide Telescope, is the culmination of years of work by researchers at Microsoft, and the Web site and free downloadable software are available starting today, at www.WorldWideTelescope.org.

In case you wanted to know, the WorldWide Telescope is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope — bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.

Here's CNET's take on it here. Happy trails to you ...

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