Expanding Access to the Night Sky
by
Charlie Bess
A few weeks back there was the announcement of The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) by Microsoft research. It is a visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the ground- and space-based telescopes. Although it is not available publicly quite yet, there are some other sites for those who can't wait and have too much light pollution to see the sky at home.
This information comes from a Wired article:
Bradford Robotic Telescope
http://www.telescope.org/
Telescope 14-inch-diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain
Location Tenerife, Canary Islands
Field of view From the north celestial pole to 52 degrees south
Pictures back in Days, sometimes weeks
Results 1,056 x 1,027-pixel color or black-and-white JPEGs
Cost Free
Micro-Observatory
mo-www.cfa.harvard.edu/MicroObservatory
Telescope 6-inch-diameter Maksutov
Location Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Amado, Arizona
Field of view Northern celestial hemisphere to 48 degrees south
Pictures back in Days, often overnight
Results 650 x 500-pixel black-and-white GIFs
Cost Free
Seeing in the Dark
www.pbs.org/seeinginthedark/explore-the-sky
Telescope 14-inch-diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain
Location Mayhill, New Mexico
Field of view Northern celestial hemisphere to about 45 degrees south
Pictures back in Days to weeks
Results 512 x 512-pixel black-and-white JPEGs
Cost Free
Slooh
http://www.slooh.com/
Telescope Two 14-inch-diameter Schmidt-Cassegrains - one for planets, the other for deep space
Location Tenerife, Canary Islands, and Santiago, Chile
Field of view Northern and southern celestial hemispheres
Pictures back in Seconds
Results 800 x 600-pixel color JPEGs
Cost $100 per year for unlimited images
I find it interesting that only one of these sites requires payment. It makes me wonder about the direction of industry information sources and the work that analysts and others do just providing information. It appears, at least in the case of the night sky, it's primarily the analysis and timeliness that are valued and the information is freely shared.
