Google Space Is Cooler Than Cool

I was going to write about ad blocking today. That'll have to wait until tomorrow because I burned the day exploring outer space and crash landing over LAX, often and early.

I re-discovered Google Earth and all its components -- Google Sky and a nifty a flight simulator. You can get everything you need on the Google Earth site.

Once you have Google Earth installed, I insist that you kill as much time as I did with its built-in flight simulator. Click Control-A to bring up the application and once you've hit ground by wildly stabbing the arrow keys on your keyboard, head for the Flight Simulator Keyboard Controls page. If you want more help with the flight similar, head for Marco Gallotta's blog.

Google Sky's a Blast

From Google Earth, a quick click on last icon on the right -- it looks like a planet -- open Google Sky. A brief video of Google sky is here. (Turn your volume down -- the video seems loud and starts immediately.)

Click the icon to get to Google Sky

Once you're on something, say, a constellation, click the blue icon for a details and an enhanced view.

Mizar, a neat double star

Me, I find double stars fascinating. You can find a number of them on the Sky and Telescope page. It's a treat to search for them on Google Sky. Search for Alcor, and then Albireo to see what I mean.

Next up: Free Planetarium and astrology apps and a look at what I think is a video from a spy satellite.

Comments

worldwide telescope
In trying to download the program I got the error msg (The cabinet file f59bc35f4cc9ff5b5db5efae64d04299 required for this installation is corrupt and cannot be used. This could indicate a network error, an error reading from the cd-rom,or a problem with this package.
I tried to reinstall several times and got the same msg. What can I do to get it?
Thanks
Gene Dwyer

unzipped

July 16, 2008

5:01 AM PT

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