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O WorldWide Telescope reúne milhares de imagens do céu. Para quem gosta de astronomia, o programa cumpre o que promete: transformar-se em um telescópio virtual. Fácil de usar, traz coleções de objetos celestes, que podem ser acessadas com poucos cliques.

O usuário também para definir o local onde está e ver o céu naquele exato momento, com todas as constelações. Viu uma mancha perto de alguma estrela? é só usar a rodinha do mouse para dar zoom e conferir se se trata de uma galáxia ou de uma nebulosa, por exemplo.

Na base de dados do WorldWide Telescope estão fotos tiradas pelos telescópios orbitais Hubble, Spitzer e Chandra, além de registros feitos por observatórios terrestres. O aplicativo ainda não tem versão em português.

Site : http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/Home.aspx

Esta semana la revista TIME presentó su listado anual de sitios que marcaron tendencia en 2008. En él se destacan 2 servicios de Microsoft, que son WorldWide Telescope y Photosynth.

Vía: LiveSide

I am starting this blog with mixed feelings.  Originally, my aim was very simple: propose the development of a remotely controlled (via Internet) telescope suitable for high school students, and also university students studying via Distance Learning and thus without access to the telescope(s) at the University’s observatory.
Such a telescope is called a Robotic Telescope

If it is heavily utilized, a single Robotic Telescope will not suffice for a country where each year over half a million learners write the final matric exams (written after 12 years of primary+high school in South Africa). For the last two years of high school that total number would be well over 1 million.  Many Robotic Telescopes will be required.
Users will access one or more Robotic Telescope from any computer or terminal with an Internet connection. Usually these would be PCs, laptops, notebooks, netbooks or Thin Client terminals but it would also be possible to use a PDA or Smartphone.

There are several Robotic Telescopes accessible to anyone anywhere in the world with Internet Access. Two of these will be described in a later post.
The reason I have the mixed feelings, is because I learnt, in the course of doing some Internet research for this project, of the existence of Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope (WWT).  NASA is collaborating with Microsoft, and together they will make terabyes of picture files from earthbound telescopes as well as some of the NASA space flights, available on Internet.

To access this wealth of information, one has to install Microsoft Silverlight on one’s PC.  Astronomers rave about WWT. <<http://www.worldwidetelescope.org>>
One can think of it as a Google Earth for outer space, that enables one to zoom into stars, planets, galaxies etc. One adult astronomer was so overcome by emotion when first trying out this system, that he cried!

So, with large robotic telescopes available for anyone to access at no charge, and with Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope available also at no charge other than the cost of the Broadband Internet Access, why bother to attempt to develop a robotic telescope in South Africa?
Well, I will attempt to answer this question in a later post.

O WorldWide Telescope – WWT é um software (Web 2.0) da Microsoft(TM) que transforma seu computador em um “telescópio virtual”. Utilizando base de imagens e dados de pesquisas espaciais de várias fontes de várias partes do mundo para pesquisas e exploração do Universo.

Sempre gostei desse tipo de software e já utilizei muitos. Até conhecer o WWT meu preferido tinha sido o Google Earth com seu “sky view” e agora realmente me surpreendi com essa ferramenta da MS.

A página oficial do projeto é: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ e lá você pode usar a versão web-client ou optar por baixar a versão windows-client.

Se optar pela versão windows-client como fiz verá que a instalação é a parte mais chata e demorada (nem tanto), desde que você já tenha a .NET framework instalada/atualizada assim como o DirectX. Depois de alguns next > next > e finish é só abrir o atalho que vai ser criado no desktop.

Snapshot da interface do WWT

A Interface gráfica é muito rica e também bastante intuitiva. Vou comentar alguns pontos que tornam a experiência de usar o WWT bem legal.

Barra superior: Destaque para o breadcrumb e thumbnails.

Na barra superior estão localizados em forma de thumbnails as “Collections” que é onde você pode escolher o que quer ver. Inclusive tem uma Collection chamada Earth que não merece muita atenção, Google Earth é bem melhor nesse quesito, mas enfim está lá.

Um ponto forte é o breadcrumb Logo acima do conteúdo de cada categoria. Essa barra também é redimensionável, o que facilita bastante quando se procura algo específico.

Barra inferior: Mostra sempre os objetos que estão visíveis na tela.

Na barra inferior à esquerda aparece o conteúdo da collection que foi selecionada na barra superior e também uma funcionalidade muito legal aqui que é sempre exibir os outros objetos que estão visíveis na tela em tempo real.

Referência para observação tanto geográfica quanto na visão do observador

Na barra inferior à direita é possível sempre visualizar a referência no céu a partir da Terra e pelo ponto de vista do observador. O zoom que é utilizado na visualização é atualizado em tempo real nesse painel tornando-o bastante útil.

Não analisei com mais profundidade todos os recursos que o WWT oferece, mas farei em breve e caso encontre outro pontos pontos mais relevantes atualizo nesse post. A minha impressão geral é de uma ferramenta bem legal pra quem gosta de astronomia e vale a pena ser testada.

Acredito que para concorrer com o Google Earth, a Microsoft entrou nisso.

” A Nasa e a Microsoft anunciaram na última terça-feira (24) uma parceria para mostrar, por meio da internet, imagens captadas do planeta Marte. Para tornar possível esta parceira, as duas companhias elaboraram o ‘WorldWide Telescope”. “
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Microsoft has struck a deal with NASA to provide 100 terabytes of photos for Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope which has been competing against Google Sky. Personally I found Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope to be one of the coolest applications Microsoft has made recently. This will only help improve the power of this application and hopefully allow for more people to see this application. One of the major problems with Microsoft WorldWide Telescope is actually just the fact that nobody actually knows that it exists. Hopefully this will help solve that problem.

Links:

• pcmag.com

Last week, Microsoft did something quite unexpected: Make WorldWide Telescope available via Silverlight for Web browsers. For Silverlight 3, that could also mean as an application separate from the browser. “Could it be that Microsoft …[More..]


NASA Joins Microsoft

Thanks to this week’s Special Guest Author, Iain B.  (my husband)

This week’s selection of characters has covered a fairly broad range of astronomers and astrophysicists: historical, professional and amateur.

As I’ve tried to show, Astronomy is probably the only scientific discipline which is as accessible to a schoolchild as it is to an Ivy League research professor, because ultimately the sky is the same for everybody and changes little over time. The only limiting factor is cost.

Traditionally the level of technical equipment available to the professionals is generally much greater than the average amateur can access.  Whereas amateurs may typically use binoculars or small telescopes ranging from a size of 6 cm at $150 up to 30 cm for $4000 or more, professionals have access to huge telescopes of several meters in size, costing multiple millions of dollars (for example Keck with its dual 10m primary mirrors cost $231 million to build, and $47,000 per night to use at 2002 prices).

But as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, all that is about to change…

Because currently in beta testing are two exciting new software applications: “Google Sky” and Microsoft “WorldWide Telescope.”  These two free internet-based applications will provide access to photographs and other data recorded from many of the world’s top-level research telescopes.  Google Sky uses a web interface at http://www.google.com/sky, and WorldWide Telescope (which is currently a Windows-only application, but will launch a Web 2.0 interface soon) uses one at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org.

Here are examples of Google Sky and WorldWide Telescope:

image from Google Sky

image from WorldWide Telescope

WorldWide Telescope is actually a continuation of the TerraServer project (originally formed by computer scientist Jim Gray at Microsoft Research), using the previous databases and infrastructure created for Microsoft Virtual Earth.  It has now been extended to include whole-sky digital maps which in some cases are updated as frequently as every three days (and if you do happen to purchase a “Go-To” telescope, these computer programs can even be used to point your own telescope at what you are seeing on the screen, so you have a live real-time view).

So, why do I think the development of these software programs is important?  Because for the first time since the days of Tycho Brahe and Galileo, the playing field is truly level; and Joe (and Josephine) Average have the same access to high quality astronomy data as professionals.

We are all made of stars, but not many of us take the time to stop and look up at them.  But now, without even owning a telescope, anyone with a computer and internet access can access near-realtime images of the same quality that professional scientists use for their research work.

And to Astronomy, I think that may become just as important as the invention of the telescope itself.

So, that’s it for my week on the blog.  We now return you to your regular programming, already in progress…

-Iain B.

What a day at PDC, (Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference)!

A number of new technologies have either been launched or previewed – all of which look pretty interesting.

Azure – Today they have launched some initial information about their cloud OS which they have named Azure, (and not Strata as some early guesses indicated).

Key components of the Azure Services Platform include the following:

• Windows Azure for service hosting and management, low-level scalable storage, computation and networking.
• Microsoft SQL Services for a wide range of database services and reporting.
• Microsoft .NET Services which are service-based implementations of familiar .NET Framework concepts such as workflow and access control.
• Live Services for a consistent way for users to store, share and synchronize documents, photos, files and information across their PCs, phones, PC applications and Web sites. Currently the most tangible vision is something that I use on a daily basis – Live Mesh.
• Microsoft SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services for business content, collaboration and rapid solution development in the cloud
• State-of-the-Art Datacenter Infrastructure

Check out some of these newly published Channel 9 videos to build your, (and my!), understanding of the new platform.

Manuvir Das: Introducing Windows Azure

Steve Marx- Windows Azure for Developers

Windows 7 – Microsoft have previewed some screenshots of Vista’s successor. In essence it looks like like Vista, but with a slicker interface, some neater tools and less dependence on UAC, (User Account Control).  There’s a great overview over at Channel 10 by Sarah Perez, (SarahinTampa) – here.

OpenID – Windows Live ID is publicly committing to support the OpenID digital identity framework with the announcement of the public availability of a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the Windows Live ID OpenID Provider. You will soon be able to use your Windows Live ID account to sign in to any OpenID Web site!

Worldwide Telescope – Microsoft have been showcasing their Wordwide Telescope which you can see more of here.

Office Online – Microsoft said it would soon introduce Web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, giving users the ability to edit documents via a Web browser or mobile phone when away from their PCs. These will be “lightweight versions” of the Microsoft Office programs that are installed on PCs.  This of course pits Microsoft against Google, which already has a set of Web-based spreadsheet and word-processing programs. Microsoft didn’t say how much it would charge for the Web-based versions but the company was considering ad-based or subscription-based models or both. The Web-based programs will also be part of the next version of Office.

Hubble Telescope Image: Changing Our Thinking About The Universe

The quality and importance of the voluminous numbers of Hubble telescope images beamed to Earth by the Hubble telescope has changed the way that the universe is perceived and helped astronomers to a great extent in understanding how the universe was formed and how long ago. Read further  Hubble Telescope Image

Travel to the stars, and beyond >>

The main WorldWide Telescope  interface  includes  seven  abs for navigating: Explore, Guided Tours, Search , Community,  Telescope,  View ,  and  Settings .  Some  of  the  tabs ,  such  as  Explore  and  Search ,include collapsible  submenus  with further options at the bottom of the interface. The bulk of the screen is devoted to displaying detailed images of objects throughout the universe.