WorldWide Telescope Offers Free Celestial View

Stargazers have reason to rejoice with the advent of The WorldWide Telescope that allows your computer to function as a virtual telescope. Astronomy enthusiasts can now gaze at celestial images from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. The free download is available at www.worldwidetelescope.org

The WorldWide Telescope site enables the user to develop their own slide show of what they have discovered. There are also guided tours from some of the most renowned astronomers such as Harvard Astronomer Alyssa Goodman who’s tour illuminates how dust in the Milky Way Galaxy condenses to form planets and stars. It is fascinating! University of Chicago Cosmologist Mike Gladders’ takes you on a tour that enables you to see billions of years into the past.

The WorldWide Telescope was created by Microsoft’s high performance Visual Experience Engine. This high-powered engine allows for seamless panning and zooming across the night sky. It blends huge amounts of information and images from multiple online sources into an incredible experience.

The World Wide Telescope allows the viewer to witness first hand the marvels of the universe from their computer. The observer can view the heavens from multiple wavelengths. An X-ray view of the sky is provided to allow viewing of vibrant radiation clouds. The Hydrogen Alpha view is great for viewing hydrogen clouds. A user can view the stars from the Hubble Telescope. Other views are provided by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Spitzer Space Telescope, Sky Surveys, the Messier Catalog and more. The program allows viewers to set their hometown as the default sky view.

The WorldWide Telescope is dedicated to the memory of Jim Gray and is a free resource provided by Microsoft Research.

The minimum system requirements for using the WorldWide Telescope are:

: Microsoft XP SP2 (min), Windows Vista

: PC with Intel Core 2 Dou processor with 2 gigaherts or faster, recommended

: 1 GB RAM; 2 GB RAM recommended

: 3D accelerated card with 128 MB RAM

: 1 GB available HD space, 10 GB recommended

: XGA (1024 x 768) or higher resolution

: Microsoft DirectX version 9.0c and .Net Framework 2.0

: Internet connection at 56Kbps or higher required for some features.