The AstroStat Slog » Google Sky http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog Weaving together Astronomy+Statistics+Computer Science+Engineering+Intrumentation, far beyond the growing borders Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:05:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4 Google Sky http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/google-sky/ http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/google-sky/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:32:59 +0000 vlk http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/?p=268 For people in the Boston area, a cornucopia of talks on Google Sky in the near future.

  1. Hunting for Needles in Massive Astronomical Data Streams
    Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 4pm
    Room 330, 60 Oxford St.
    Ryan Scranton, Google Sky Team
  2. Inside Google Sky
    Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 8pm
    Room 105, Emerson Hall
    Andrew Connolly, Google Sky Team
  3. Sky in Google Earth
    Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 1pm
    Phillips Auditorium, 60 Garden
    Alberto Conti & Carol Christian, STScI
]]> http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2008/google-sky/feed/ 4 Beyond Google Sky http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/beyond-google-sky/ http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/beyond-google-sky/#comments Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:31:42 +0000 vlk http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/beyond-google-sky/ Google Sky is good for a quick look “what’s that you just saw over there?”, but not for anything more than that. Not yet anyway. Mind you, I think it is a good thing. It is easy to use, and definitely worth a look as an astronomy popularization tool. But there are a number of astro visualization programs that can (so to speak) beat the pants off Google Sky with one hand tied behind the back. Check these out (all open source):

XEphem : http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/xephem/
Celestia : http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
Stellarium : http://www.stellarium.org/

There are many more, of varying degrees of usefulness, user friendliness, and price. Your mileage will vary. But for sheer wow factor, hard to beat Celestia.

[Update 10/01]: The e-Astronomer considers how Google Sky could become more useful. Some interesting tie-ins to Virtual Observatory concepts.

]]> http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/beyond-google-sky/feed/ 2 [ArXiv] Google Sky, Sept. 05, 2007 http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/arxiv-google-sky-sept-05-2007/ http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/arxiv-google-sky-sept-05-2007/#comments Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:46:08 +0000 hlee http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/arxiv-google-sky-sept-05-2007/ Ah..Sky in Google Earth made an arxiv appearance [arxiv/astro-ph:0709.0752], Sky in Google Earth: The Next Frontier in Astronomical Data Discovery and Visualization by R. Scranton et al.

]]> Ah..Sky in Google Earth made an arxiv appearance [arxiv/astro-ph:0709.0752], Sky in Google Earth: The Next Frontier in Astronomical Data Discovery and Visualization by R. Scranton et al.

]]> http://hea-www.harvard.edu/AstroStat/slog/2007/arxiv-google-sky-sept-05-2007/feed/ 2