June 11, 2008

Microsoft World Wide Telescope

Thanks to Toren for the link to Microsoft's new toy, the World Wide Telescope. At least for me, it was a quick and easy installation, and since this computer easily matches the hardware recommendations, it runs quite well.

The sky isn't the only thing you can look at. You can also look at the Earth, though the coverage isn't as detailed as Google's. (Yet.) And there's a separate "Planet" choice, which gives you a submenu permitting you to look at Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Io, several others, and... Mandelbrot.

/images/01747.jpg

Yup, they mapped the Mandelbrot diagram onto a sphere, and you can explore it as deep as you want. It isn't being downloaded, it's computed locally.

The starmap explorer is cool, too. (How in the heck did I get the idea that the Pleiades were part of the Little Dipper? I could have sworn...)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 01:26 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Given their arrangement, for the longest time I thought the Pleiades were the Little Dipper. It wasn't until I took a proper astronomy class that I was disabused of that fact.

Posted by: Will at June 11, 2008 04:22 PM (WnBa/)

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