Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - 30

DENNIS DI CICCO

Browsing the Sky

WWT@HARVARD From left to right, Patricia Udomprasert,
director of the WWT Ambassador program, coauthor Alyssa
Goodman, astronomer Owen Gingerich, and coauthor Curtis
Wong take a moment to explore the universe at a large-screen
kiosk in the lobby of the Harvard Science Center.

presented in magazines like Sky & Telescope. But between
city lights and smog, he could only see the Moon, a few
planets, and some nebulae with his 60-mm refractor. But
what he really wanted was a gigantic telescope, a dark sky,
and maybe even an expert by his side to explain the view.
Years later Wong found himself working at Microsoft
Research with big data computer scientist Jim Gray and
astronomer Alex Szalay (Johns Hopkins University). Gray
and Szalay were producing software to archive, organize,
and visualize Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. When
the pair wrote a seminal paper envisioning "The WorldWide Telescope, an Archetype for Online Science," Wong
NIGHT SKY
WWT opens
to show the
celestial view
from a given
time and location, seamlessly stitched
together from
thousands
of Digitized
Sky Survey
images.
Constellation
patterns are
overlaid by
default.

30

April 2015 sky & telescope

realized that all the elements were in place to realize his
childhood dream.
Wong presented his ideas at a 2005 astronomy visualization conference, where he befriended professional
astronomer and coauthor Alyssa Goodman. When he
finally got the go-ahead to make his project a reality in
2006, Goodman and other astronomers advised him on
its content and usability. During the next two years Wong
collaborated with software architect Jonathan Fay, an
amateur astronomer himself, to build the software; Wong
designed the experience and Fay developed the code.
After Gray was lost at sea during a 2007 sailing trip,
Wong and Fay retitled the project WorldWide Telescope to
honor the computer scientist's vision for online astronomy.
Launched at a 2008 TED conference, the software was
featured in Sky & Telescope that same year (Sept. 2008, p.
44). Former S&T editor Stuart Goldman explained in an
accompanying blog post the best way to explore WWT:
"Watch the introductory tours to learn your way around the
program - and then left- and right-click on everything!"
That's still good advice, even more so now than in 2008.

Tour the Universe
Today's amateur astronomers are blessed with a wide
variety of tools to display the night sky. WWT offers the
same functions as other planetarium software, but with
unique quality and breadth. The images in the program's
database capture the sky in more than 85 different wavelengths - most of these far beyond the spectral window
of the human eye.
WWT opens with the night sky as seen from your location. The 1-trillion-pixel view seamlessly stitches together



Sky and Telescope - April 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - April 2015

Contents
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - Cover1
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - Cover2
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - 3
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - Contents
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - 5
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - A
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - B
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - 6
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - 7
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Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - Cover3
Sky and Telescope - April 2015 - Cover4
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