WorldWide Telescope

I recently discovered a neat program called WorldWide Telescope. It is free courtesy of Microsoft Research. You can either download and install it on your Windows box or run the web client if you happen to use a Mac or are just inclined to do so.

The app grabs photos and other content from the tubes and allows you to zip around the night sky, see objects up close, learn about constellations, etc.



Here, I am checking out Neptune in Explore mode. (Note how the interface is a lot like that of Windows Media Player 11.) In addition to the backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Milky Way, you can also check out galaxies far, far away using photographs from the Spitzer and Hubble telescopes, amongst other sources.

One of the neat things is that, when you choose a different object, the program does this great power of 10 readjustment where your view zooms out billions of light years, pans, and then zooms in again for a close-up.

There are also Guided Tours which are short videos like those you'd see at a planetarium. Planets, black holes, star clusters - lots of topics to choose from. Here's a scrape from "Dust and Us".



I haven't exactly run WWT through its paces, but, it looks like those with no knowledge of astronomy can check out the night sky with little hassle yet those more familiar with the discipline will have plenty to keep themselves busy as well. And, hey, free planetarium software is free planetarium software.