Webware

You probably have heard about Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope referred to as "the thing that made Robert Scoble cry". Today, the world finally gets to check out what all the buzz is about.

WorldWide Telescope is a desktop application for Windows which does exactly what you would think. It essentially turns your computer into a telescope. You can choose from a variety of options from roaming the universe freely, to guided tours of various celestial features. You can join communities of stargazers and also connect your own telescope to your computer and control it with this application. Another option is to change your source of imagery to gain a different perspective.

This application really shines in the guided tours which let you sit back and observe while the application zooms and pans around the stars with someone narrating in the background. The narrators range from an 8 year old boy talking about The Ring Nebula to a Harvard astrophysicist talking about dust.

(Credit: Microsoft WorldWide Telescope)

WorldWide Telescope is an extremely feature packed and complex application. The complexity of this application might turn some off because it certainly seems to be overwhelming at first. I'm glad that Microsoft decided to keep this wealth of features and options in the application, despite the potential usability problems. Having so many different controls really gives people the ability to delve deeper into specific areas of interest.

The imagery in WorldWide Telescope is absolutely breathtaking and it's a truly unique feeling to fly around in space and take a look at what's around us. I have only scratched the surface of what this application is capable of and I'm already impressed. There is a whole lot to see here and the volume and quality of content and guided tours will only improve as time goes on.

Google takes a gander at a galaxy.

Google just launched a new version of Google Earth (news, download) from which you gaze up from the surface of the planet, not just down on it. It's a good way to see which stars and planets are over your home, right now. You can also check out a rich database of Hubble Space Telescope images that is overlaid on the celestial map.

The new Google Earth has a lot of additional education and reference material linked to it, pulled in from the Net as needed. The program is a great way to learn about the night sky. It has two big limitations, though: your point of view is limited to Earth (you can't see the stars from other locations) and you have an extremely limited control of time. If you want to see where the planets were on your birthday, for example, you can't.

If your curiosity about the universe bumps into Google Earth's edges, I'd recommend also checking out these two applications:

Celestia (download) is a 3D simulation of the galaxy. Its special power is not its imagery (Google's is better, although Celestia does a good job with planets and asteroids in our solar system), but rather that you can zoom in on any object in the program's database and see the galaxy from that perspective. You can also see the position of stars at any point in time and can control the rate of time's passage to see how objects move over the millennia.

Stellarium (download) is a gorgeous planetarium for your computer. Its sky and star visuals are a lot more compelling then either Google's or Celestia's, although Stellarium does not have detailed Hubble overlays. Like Google, it's Earth-bound (you can't move your point of reference), but like Celestia, it gives you good control over time so you can see the heavens wheel about. My favorite feature is that it will also overlay constellation lines from other cultures (Chinese, Inuit, and so on); Google only shows the Western constellations.

There are also Web-based online planetaria. They have good data, but they don't give you the smooth visual controls that the downloadable applications do. See Sky-map.org, WikiSky (review), and YourSky. You can control a powerful stargazing telescope yourself via the Web at the pay site Slooh (review). There are also astronomy gadgets covered over on our gadget blog, Crave.

Finally, if the real galaxy doesn't appeal to you, check out the collaborative work of fiction called Galaxiki. Be advised that it was named one of the "Five stupidest start-ups of the summer" by Valleywag.

(Credit: Jodrell Bank Observatory)

I have a Twitter account. So do a handful of CNET's other bloggers (Rafe is Mr. Popular). Maybe you have one, too. Want to know who else does? Several of the telescopes at the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK, that's who.

A British astronomy fan, who operates the aptly-named Astronomy Blog, has set up Twitter accounts for the observation targets of several of Jodrell Bank's telescopes and is aggregating the feeds here. You probably won't see these Twitter feeds saying "starbucks run" or "cat knocked over flowerpot, arrrgh," but really, I think "Observing: crab pulsar" is a lot cooler.

Here's a screenshot:

(Credit: Twitter)

(Via Wired Science)

(P.S.: We like astronomy a lot. See here, here, and here.)

Slooh is a do-it-yourself stargazing service that puts you behind powerful telescopes in real time. With Slooh's help, you can see a disco-ball-like cluster of stars, a sunflower galaxy, Comet Lovejoy, and other wonders from an observatory atop a Canary Island mountain--all from the comfort of your chair at home.

The Slooh Launch Pad takes you to the moon, and more.

I found the most dazzling views by following Slooh's suggested astronomical points of interest. Guided missions happen at 9:00 p.m. (Universal Time) nightly. The longer you hang out, the riper the images get. Impressed by the blood-red Trifid Nebula, 5,500 light-years away in the Sagittarius constellation? Slooh lets you snap, save, and show off three pictures at each stop in space.

By contrast, the HubbleSite, which just won a Webby Award, offers images that may be processed a million times to achieve jaw-dropping crispness, but they're not live. Slooh is more beginner-friendly than skywatching sites run by nonprofits and universities. It's also easier to use than a pricey telescope, especially for urbanites who can't see past the smog and city lights. Slooh's views may be 2 million to 3 million times clearer than what you'll see in a city, according to COO Tierney O'Dea.

Slooh can be pretty cool once you get the hang of it, but the Flash-based Mission Interface should be more intuitive. Pop-ups label the various features (unless you turn them off), which is somewhat helpful. But to no avail, I kept clicking arrows around the lens, and I couldn't satisfy the urge to drag around the view.

Nevertheless, Slooh is fun already, and its social networking element can add depth and education to the experience. Slooh's users include newbies and professional astronomers in 70 countries. You can chat, share images, and rate the current sky conditions. One amateur even identified a known asteroid. Slooh also offers podcasts on iTunes, hosted by luminaries, such as comet hunter David Levy and author Phil Harrington. Blogging is coming soon.

Unfortunately, Slooh is free of charge for only a week, and a bit costly at $99 per year thereafter. But a family full of science fans might find it a great value. Because Slooh's founder, Michael Paolucci, wants to make the service more accessible, he's working to give it away to school children in India and Iran.

Slooh is adding telescopes in Chile, with the long-term goal to provide 24-hour coverage of the Earth. Unlike so many dynamic Web services that allow you to network and navel-gaze with a select group of people, Slooh connects you to the vastness beyond our terrestrial, wired world. That's partly why Slooh co-sponsored the surreal Yuri's Night party that kept me up until dawn at the NASA Ames research center last month. That event, like Slooh, was built with the starry-eyed aim of getting more people to celebrate space exploration as an extension of caring for the home planet. I'm excited to see how the Slooh community will evolve around what O'Dea called the "celestial campfire."

Slooh puts you eye-to-eye with the Black-Eye Galaxy, among others.

Over on our sister blog Crave, we post about the occasional stargazing gadget for amateur astronomers. But if you aren't willing to shell out the cash for a pricey telescope, night sky projector, or home planetarium, never fear--that's where the wonderful world of free webware comes in. Wikisky was described by the Wired Science blog as "Google Earth for space," which is essentially an apt description. You can use Wikisky (which isn't actually a wiki, for the record) to view and navigate the entire night sky either as a graphical representation, or in legit photographs courtesy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

(Credit: Wikisky)

The interface isn't as easy to get the hang of as Google Maps or Google Earth's, but then again, I don't think very many of us are as familiar with the night sky as we are with a world atlas. It also was a bit slow to load, even in the graphical form, and it is more difficult to zoom in and out because Google Maps' quick keyboard commands don't apply.

This appears to be very much a project in the works--currently, only a quarter of the night sky is available--but I think it's ultimately a great idea. If Wikisky can keep growing and adding more functionality, I can see this being an awesome information resource, and an even awesomer time-waster.

See also: The downloadable app, Stellarium (for PC, Mac).