Ever wanted to explore outer space, without going out to space? Without buying a telescope? Without even leaving your computer or desk? With Microsoft Worldwide Telescope, you can. It is Microsoft’s response to programs such as Google Earth Sky Mode.
Worldwide Telescope
Explore the other planets in our solar system, the stars, and take a look at other galaxies. All with stunning high quality images taken from space telescopes such as the Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer. Microsoft’s servers are holding terabytes of data to carry such incredible images.
It's Saturn!
You’re definitely not limited to just our solar system. Go beyond just looking at planets. Search for some constellations!
WorldWide Telescope Constellations
Right click anywhere and something called the finder scope will appear with useful real time information including the Altitude (Alt) and Azimuth (Az). Altitude is the angle up or down from the horizon. Azimuth is similar to longitude or right ascension. The second values for these two are constantly changing. To view a particular star, locate it, and then zoom out all the way so you’re viewing it from Earth. Then right click on the star to view the info.
Nebula in Ara
The observing location on Earth can be changed in the ‘View’ tab.
Observing Location Options
Worldwide Telescope also features fully narrated guided tours covering various topics, such as Black Holes.
'Dust and Us' guided tour
You can view panoramas of various sites including the Apollo 12 Landing Site and Mars Rovers.
Panorama of Apollo 12 Landing Site
Guess what planet this is?
Worldwide Telescope also has Bing Maps/Virtual Earth built in therefore, you can view maps of the Earth, although the Bird’s Eye View feature is not available.
Worldwide Telescope has some of Bing Maps (Virtual Earth)
With the Windows client, you can even connect a real telescope to Worldwide Telescope! Learn more about this feature here.
Connect an USB Supported Telescope to your computer
Microsoft Worldwide Telescope requires a decently powerful video card and CPU.
There is also a web based client powered by Silverlight for users who run a Mac or do not meet the system requirements to run the full Windows client. A comparison of the two can be found here.
Cross platform web based version powered by Silverlight.
Microsoft WorldWide Telescope Aphelion Beta
Performance: 4.5
Features: 5
Ease of Use: 4.5
Value for Money: 5
Appearance: 5
Final Rating: 4.75
I highly urge everyone to give Worldwide Telescope a try, whether you are an astronomer or educator or something who just wants to look at the stars, especially if you live in a big city like I do where its too bright to see the stars in the sky.
Worldwide Telescope
Supports Windows XP SP2 or higher
Silverlight Web Version
Supports Windows and Mac
…Whoa. I didn’t even know our computers could SUPPORT these truly extensive and very detailed images. This is pretty awesome.
How much does this cost?
“Guess what planet this is?” Mars.
Incredibly detailed and stunning. Does this lag? I bet it lags.
Did I forget to mention its free?
It actually doesn’t lag much given that your computer has a decent video card and sufficient RAM and a fast CPU.
:O It’s FREE!?
I might actually get it now. Like, for real. Fur reals. Fur real friends!
And it doesn’t lag? That’s surprising; I remember Google Earth lagged a lot on my computer, and this thing seems to be a lot richer than Earth.
Was my guess for the planet right?
By the way, this is probably your longest article yet, am I right?
Isn’t my First Class Flyer articles longer?
Google Earth’s quality is usually very poor on my computer because of my graphics card. WorldWide Telescope was a pleasant surprise.
Well, comparing the length of the scrollbar, this article is almost exactly as long as your GIMP vs Paint.NET article.
But it has 10 huge images, as compared to your FCFlyer’s 9 mediocre size screenshots. So this is longer in my opinion.
So WWTelescope runs faster than Earth? I have to try this. How much memory does it take up compared to Earth?
Well, Google Earth starts up in about 3 seconds while WWTelescope takes around 15 seconds.
The initial RAM usage of Google Earth for me was 65 MB and it quickly climbed to 130 MB as everything finished loading. As I searched for some places, it just kept going up. I’ve seen Google Earth use as high as 600 MB of RAM (especially with 3D Buildings). The CPU usage varies greatly from using 50+ CPU when its loading something and traveling to nothing at all when its idle.
WWTelescope starts off at 200-230 MB and pretty much stabilizes around there during my testing. However, it is good to note that the system requirements for WWT is higher than Google Earth especially Video RAM and 3D Acceleration. The CPU Usage stays around 50 CPU the entire time, even if its idle.
hi im dorsa from dubai i loved your site but i couldn’t go an d see the planets with the site’s telescope myself please mail me how to do that thank u thruly yours bbye