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Filed under: Google

Google Sky

google sky

Forget about going to a planetarium, Google Earth has expanded its view and is starting to focus on the stars.

Sky in Google Earth has launched. This new addition to Earth enables viewers to check out different areas in the universe, from distant galaxies light years away, to constellations and planets. You must download the new version of Google Earth to get the features, then you're on your way to checking out planets in motions and supernova explosions.

This data was partly built with Google's NASA partnership and through the Hubble Space Telescope Observations.

Filed under: Fun, Web services

Stargaze at work with Wikisky

Wikisky
If you've been annoyed that Google Maps only works for locations on the Earth, Moon and Mars, you might want to check out Wikisky. It's sort of like Google Maps for the sky.

What you get is a click and drag interface for checking out constellations and individual stars. If you zoom in all the way, you'll often find yourself staring at a black space. But unlike real space, if you scream, your officemates probably will hear you.

One of the niftier features of Wikisky is the ability to enter an address and see what the sky would look like if you looked up. Assuming, of course, you have a window in your ceiling. And that it's night time, and you don't live in a city where the streetlights drown out the night sky.

[via Hackszine]

Filed under: Fun, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source

Stellarium: Open source PC planetarium

StellariumOne of these days I expect Google to come out with "Google Galaxy" or some similar outward-looking companion Google Earth. But we don't need to wait for Google, as there's some good free offerings out there for people wanting to stargaze from the comfort of their computer. Among them is Stellarium, an open source, multi-platform desktop planetarium. Stellarium features over 120,000 catalogued stars, our planets and their satellites, illustrated constellations and star clusters, images of nebulae, a realistic Milky Way, and "very realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset." In the eye candy department it does realistic sunrise, sunset, atmosphere, and star twinkling, shooting stars eclipse simulations, and skinnable landscapes. It can also do fisheye and spheric mirror projection for real dome shows and has scripting for recording and playing back your own star shows. Wow.

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