Exactly who doesn’t like gazing at the night sky? I would definitely love to doze off looking at the twinkling stars and trying to spot constellations. Sounds weird but there is an amazing sense of calm up there in the heavens even if everything around you is topsy turvy.
Now, not everyone can prop up a telescope or just enjoy the luxury of sleeping under a starry sky. Neither do we have such clear skies that aid our fantasies. That’s precisely why I’ve complied a list of websites which allow you to do just that.
These websites go far beyond the simple telescope and the naked eye. You get access to images from the Hubble and a dozen other powerful observatories like they’re your own playground. All this without even having to download anything. I know, the Web is just so awesome.
This website uses some seriously high res images from ESO’s satellite’s (to the tune of 65 MB per image!!) to show you a crops of The Milky Way and the Lagoon Nebula. The website is run by some nice French blokes at the ESO who aim at ‘connecting the sky as seen by the unaided eye with that seen by hobby and professional astronomers’. C’est magnifique is all that I have to say
2) Wiki Sky
WikiSky wont bother giving you imagery of our very own solar system but will go far, far beyond it. There are so many views of different galaxies, comets, nebulas and black holes present that you could spend an entire day looking at them and still want some more. The best part of the website is ‘The Attractive Spots of the Universe’ to the right. The website also allows you to take screenshots to set as wallpapers and such like.
This is a rather simple flash app which allows you to see the night sky as you would normally see it. You can have constellations, details of a particular star. The cool thing is you can adjust your viewing position to see the sky from any damn location on the planet. And if you remember, we’ve linked to Neave before. The guy is just so cool, that you gotta give him link love.
4) World Wide Telescope
You know all those ads from Microsoft which show kids excelling at school projects and stuff after using MS Office? You can safely assume that MS Office was NOT what the kids were using; it most probably was WWT. This application can easily satisfy all your needs when it comes to gazing far into space. They’ve got some amazing interactive tours to help students and tutors alike. Plus the thing is seamlessly blended into Bing Maps, just point your mouse skywards and let the magic begin. Available as a desktop app and on the web.
5) Google Sky
Google Sky comes to you with the all to familiar interface of Google Maps. Its got a fair amount of space images from the Hubble, but that’s about it. Not really a force to reckon with in space research. Just a nifty, low fuss stargazing client.
Image Courtesy: neilcreek
