
Google Sky launches - technoguyrob
http://www.google.com/sky/
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mynameishere
The chunkiness that is tolerable with maps seems quite unnatural with
astronomy. I mean, it really should feel like a spaceship.

Also, is there some reason why three people have posted the same link? Here it
is again, for those who've missed it:

[http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=-70.00556654574503&l...](http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=-70.00556654574503&longitude=-101.07421875&zoom=8&Spitzer=0.00&ChandraXO=0.00&Galex=0.00&IRAS=0.00&WMAP=0.00&Cassini=0.00&slide=16&mI=1&oI=2)

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noonespecial
They definitely need a more graceful fail for zooming too far in than a gray
box in place of the tile that says "No imagery available at this zoom level."

You're scrolling around, looking in on something, and then _bang_ the whole
screen is gone, nothing but gray boxes, and you're whole sense of context is
lost... This bothered me on maps, doubly so here.

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simplegeek
I liked the dust cloud
[http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=-70.00556654574503&l...](http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=-70.00556654574503&longitude=-101.07421875&zoom=8&Spitzer=0.00&ChandraXO=0.00&Galex=0.00&IRAS=0.00&WMAP=0.00&Cassini=0.00&slide=16&mI=1&oI=2)

Almost broken into tears, what about you Scoble?

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technoguyrob
That's no dust cloud; that's a star cloud! :-)

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simplegeek
Oops, sorry, here is the correct URL
[http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=56.66358551191311&lo...](http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=56.66358551191311&longitude=-166.7333221435547&zoom=12&Spitzer=0.00&ChandraXO=0.00&Galex=0.00&IRAS=0.00&WMAP=0.00&Cassini=0.00&slide=16&mI=1&oI=2)

Beautiful :)

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plusbryan
Why, it's the pacman ghost nebula!
[http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=-70.00556654574503&l...](http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=-70.00556654574503&longitude=-101.07421875&zoom=8&Spitzer=0.00&ChandraXO=0.00&Galex=0.00&IRAS=0.00&WMAP=0.00&Cassini=0.00&slide=16&mI=1&oI=2)

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adduc
It's a nice idea, but I don't think it'll hit home as large as Google Earth
and Google Docs has. This is for a niche market.

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albertcardona
Beware of "niche markets".

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technoguyrob
This is a truly stunning sight:

[http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=-70.00556654574503&l...](http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=-70.00556654574503&longitude=-101.07421875&zoom=8&Spitzer=0.00&ChandraXO=0.00&Galex=0.00&IRAS=0.00&WMAP=0.00&Cassini=0.00&slide=16&mI=1&oI=2)

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thamer
These real-world images come as a nice complement to two great Free programs,
Celestia - <http://www.shatters.net/celestia/> \- and Stellarium -
<http://www.stellarium.org/>

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matth
We'll know Google is truly awesome if they ever manage to launch a satellite
to do their own surveying.

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cmm324
You know, I wish I had this tool when I was in astronomy...it would had been a
much better class.

~~~
simplegeek
You seem to have studied Astronomy so I've a question. To me, these are just
bunch of some cool pictures? What information can we infer from them? I mean
how further work is based on such pictures besides enthusiastic exploration?

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npk
It's truly amazing the quantity of information in the images you are looking
at. Basically, we're trying to explain how galaxies form. The progress that's
been made on the problem has been tremendous over the past 10 or 20 years, but
we still have a long way to go. My hope, is that we do not figure out how
galaxies form, instead, finding some new physics.

Anyhow, one highlight: By counting the same red galaxies you seen in sky's
SDSS data, we have been able to measure the universal distribution of matter,
and the change in "size" of the universe, through the Baryon Acoustic
Oscillation.

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simplegeek
Thank you, npk. Amazing stuff.

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moog
When you pull the zoom all the way back you can see the Milky Way as a sine
curve.

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aston
That's just Google Maps doing its standard wraparound (east touches west on a
sphere). The shape is more like a U.

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MoonAsshole
Where is the moon?

