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WorldWide Telescope is free software from Microsoft that lets users explore the universe with impressive content from the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, and other famed ground- and space-based telescopes. Colorful nebulae, distant galaxies, black holes, and radiation clouds are all accessible from your desktop with a few clicks.
The main WorldWide Telescope interface includes seven tabs for navigating: Explore, Guided Tours, Search, Community, Telescope, View, and Settings. Some of the tabs, such as Explore and Search, include collapsible submenus with further options at the bottom of the interface. The bulk of the screen is devoted to displaying detailed images of objects throughout the universe.
You can move around the sky by clicking with your left mouse and dragging the screen. There are multiple mouse and keyboard commands for rotating and tilting the view, and zooming in and out. Right-click on any object to learn more about it. You can save your favorite places in the universe to visit them later under "My Collections," and you can watch guided tours of the universe conducted by experts and users. You can also add text, images, and shapes to enhance your tour, and you can even layer a soundtrack and voice over.
There are a few niggling bugs--zooming with the mouse wheel is inaccurate, canceling the download of a guided tour crashes the program, and the help content is hidden underneath the Explore drop-down menu. However, the software boasts a hoard of amazing telescope imagery to be explored as well as very cool features that let you view, save, and manage that imagery in many different ways. WorldWide Telescope appears to be an invaluable tool for hobbyists, astronomers, students, educators, or anyone curious about the universe.
Publisher's Description
From Microsoft:
The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.
WorldWide Telescope is created with the Microsoft Visual Experience Engine and allows seamless panning and zooming around the night sky, planets, and image environments. View the sky from multiple wavelenghts: See the x-ray view of the sky and zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then crossfade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago. Switch to the Hydrogen Alpha view to see the distribution and illumination of massive primordial hydrogen cloud structures lit up by the high energy radiation coming from nearby stars in the Milky Way. These are just two of many different ways to reveal the hidden structures in the universe with the WorldWide Telescope.
Choose from a growing number of guided tours of the sky by astronomers and educators from some of the most famous observatories and planetariums in the country. Feel free at any time to pause the tour, explore on your own (with multiple information sources for objects at your fingertips), and rejoin the tour where you left off. You can also create your own tours with music and voiceovers.
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All versions:
3.6 starsout of 173 votes
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Current version:
4.5 starsout of 4 votes
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My rating:
Write review
Results 1-4 of 4
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"Great for scientific understanding of the universe."
Version: WorldWide Telescope 3.0
Pros
Views all solar system planets and distant stars.
Cons
Google Earth has one attached to their download as an also ran. Very similar.
Summary
Personal study of the solar system and universe is recommended with this system. (Similar to Google Earth's add on program).
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"Pretty Good...but very slow on my 32-bit XP platform."
Version: WorldWide Telescope 3.0
Pros
Awesome photos and lots of views and options.
Cons
I can't seem to find the date and time stamp for the views, and I don't see any links for any REAL-TIME views (if they are even available).
Summary
Nice program. Sucks a lot of memory on older systems. Real-time views and/or date/time stamps would be a nice option (they may be there, but I can't find them).
Thought I gave it 4.5 starts, but it bumped up to five. Close enough I guess.
Updated on Mar 21, 2012 -
"Makes you feel in a Spaceship with fast controls and .."
Version: WorldWide Telescope 3.0
Pros
So many, difficult to list, rather one must experience himself to expereince firsthand. All the features are nicely combined and a truly make you happy package. Best part of it is - It is totally free...
Cons
Yet to find...
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"Nice views of the Solar System."
Version: WorldWide Telescope 3.0
Pros
Good slide show capability. Many Features.
Cons
None that I can think of.
Results 1-4 of 4
