Google Sky, Slooh bringing users live astronomy

From CNET News.com: For some time now, Google Sky has enabled users to view a wide range of imagery from high-level sources like the Hubble Telescope, NASA satellites, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. But the service has never provided a method for users to view community-created imagery, or to participate in the viewing of live events like eclipses.

On Friday, Google announced a partnership with Slooh, a New York company that offers the public Internet-based access to a global network of observatories, and a diverse and constantly growing collection of telescopic viewing and photography "missions."

Under the terms of the partnership, Slooh will now provide data that will allow anyone using Google Sky to view a new map layer showing thousands of user-taken photographs of deep space, as well as to access imagery from observatories of eclipses and other significant celestial events.

"What [Google Sky] doesn't have is images from people, 'Hey I took this image,' or images taken recently, or images taken right now, or last week, and...Slooh is all of those things," said Noel Gorelick, the technology lead for Sky in Google Earth, the service's official name. "There's a whole group of enthusiasts on [Slooh] who follow comets [and who take] a whole group of images, and that's very attractive to us. We like people wanting to use the tool to get better access to something they already have.

View: Article @ Source Site