WorldWide Telescope - Desktop Astronomy

Download WorldWide Telescope

I saw an early demonstration of WorldWide Telescope at a holiday party in December 2007. The room was blown away. Everything cool we've seen from mapping software for the Earth was bringing all the known universe into focus on screen in a completely different way. You can travel to galaxies and view photos from telescopes from around the world. Hear the leading researchers in astronomy share data on the stars in the sky. World Wide Telescope fundamentally shifts the way we all learn about the stars. One of the big wins here for we Earthlings is that Microsoft has succeed in getting scientists all over the globe to participate in sharing data with the unwashed masses. It's fun to bash Microsoft as a big company that takes our money and frustrates us with lackluster products we're forced to use, but World Wide Telescope is a massive example of the company diverting some of those dollars to something that ultimately benefits everyone on the planet with access to knowledge and information that's primarily only been available to scientists, exposing it in a way that's accessible to everyone. If you have an ASCOM compatible telescope, you can use it in combination with WorldWide Telescope. [Windows XP/Vista $0.00]