If you hate Microsoft and despise their products, please just pretend you did not see this thread and most definitely do not click this link.

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

On the other hand, if you do not have a totally unreasonable hatred of success, you might be interested in what some pretty smart folks can come up with.

Google Sky cannot hold a candle to this.

A download is required and the minimum system requirements are not trivial, but it is totally free and quite amazing.

I cannot imagine anyone not enjoying this and every child on the planet should be so lucky as to experience the wonder of the cosmos the way this can bring it into your home like never before.

Enjoy.

Requires XP or Vista, so my Win2000 box is out. Sounds like an ambitious project. BTW, I worked for 2 decades in astronomy. Seems long, long ago now though.

Kelly

Having a background in astronomy, you will appreciate this more than most.

My grandson will grow up with such resources available to him that previous generations could only dream about. It will become easy to take it for granted.

The imagery is stunning and the data enormous. You really need to get to a computer that can run this and play around.

I've taken a couple of the tours and like that MS has provided Authoring tools for others to create additional ones.

The developer tools in the works holds promise to expand functionality, though there are already a large number of options and features already built in.

It is going to be interesting to watch as others take this tool and run with it.

.........Sin2000 ????

Requires more than just WinXP; Duo Core processor and up to 10GB of storage.

Sounds fun but is WAY to bloated to mess with on my system.

How strict are they on copyright? Maybe some crippled copies of at least the output from Worldwide Telescope will get leaked for viewing by the public at large?

3rd world Kelly

The Duo-Core part seems to be more of a marketing agreement between MS and Intel than an absolute requirement.

I installed this on a non duo-core AMD Athlon 2.7 Ghz based system and it runs fine.

I am sure the program is more forgiving than the system requirements would indicate. However, I am also sure that the graphics card would be more of a bottle-neck than processor power.

I will check to see how much hard drive space was used later. The download was 20 MB.

Ten GB is pretty much chump change as hard drive space goes now-a-days.

As mentioned, minimum system requirements are not trivial, but this is a serious application that brings all of the known universe into your home.

I know folks who drop some serious coin on computer hardware just to play a game. Here is something that really makes it worth upgrading.

Kelly,

Hint taken.

I'll see what I can do later when I am at home.

Very good point I think. I know some of the latest digital cameras have dropped Win2000 from their requirement lists. However, I suspect that is just because they don't want to be pestered with Win2000 questions. One the other hand, a brand new Sony camera I just tried did list Win2000, and yet its USB refused to work with my Win2000 box. So the Sony went back to the store and I'm now a happy camper with a new Fujifilm.

Kelly

On the storage space issue.

The download is 20 MB. When installed, the program's directory uses 27 MB.

The extra space requirement comes in as the program caches downloaded imagery. One tour I took caused about 30 MB of imagery to be downloaded.

So far I have downloaded about half a gig worth. Though you can purge this cached information, it is best to keep it as subsequent views of the same information load much faster.

The 10 GB number seems to be how much imagery the program will download if you view most everything available. Look for this number to grow.

Clearly, this is a resource for a broadband connection and seems like a good candidate to be offered on DVD or Blu-Ray disk for those lacking the bandwidth.

Kelly, I am playing around with doing a video capture of a short session. So far, I am having a hard time keeping the resulting movie file within reason for you to download.

I will try to keep it under 20 mb or so. You can start the download at night and hope it is finished when you wake up.

Err, don't bother with video capture. I NEVER even visit the U-Tube site, or follow links there. A few static screen shots would be more than enuf. After all, I've already seen a lot of the traditional imagery, years ago ....

Kelly

Still shots will not do the application justice.

But this will give you some small inkling of the app.

Here are a few screen shots for you.

I am posting them as links rather than embedding them.

The files are about 150 KB each.

http://www.boatingabc.com/images/cosmos/helix_nebula.jpg

http://www.boatingabc.com/images/cosmos/orion_nebula.jpg

http://www.boatingabc.com/images/cosmos/venus.jpg

Keep in mind that the app is fully interactive. You can zoom in and out and pan across the sky in any direction.

Clicking on one of the labeled boxes showing a thumbnail view will automatically zoom you out from what you are looking at and pan across the ski to the exact location and then zoom you in to see the object.

Dam, Now I need a new computer.

Thanks Mike! The "image crossfade" sounds like a cool feature. On the Venus model, can you drive your POV down to low altitude and fly along the surface?

Kelly

kelley - you can and i did. but somehow, i ended up inside spock's brain. cool stuff.