.Astronomy Day 4: Eye candy December 7, 2009
Posted by sarah in: astro 2.0, dotastronomy , trackback
Day 4 at .Astronomy was all about visualisation. Astronomy is arguably the most naturally photogenic of the sciences, even though we don’t know what much of the stuff out there actually is. As technological advances enable wider, deeper, higher-resolution observations, astronomical data become increasingly complex. But data is not knowledge, and the information we can extract from these large multi-dimensional datasets is limited by our ability to visualise and mentally process this complexity. Unfortunately, PhDs don’t give us extra powers over everyone else. Our minds are wired the same as everyone else’s – we just learn how to manipulate data and present them in novel ways that make them make sense to our limited brain.
In this area some great things have happened in recent years that have allowed us to visualise astronomical data in very elegant ways. Not only professionals benefit from this: easy to use sky projection and charting software have made cutting edge astronomical data available to anyone with a decent PC.
To kick the day off, George Djorgovski of Caltech explored the changes taking place in astronomy – the advent of the data deluge we heard about on Tuesday from Andy, which will bring a multi-dimensionality that we just can’t process as individuals. George is a big fan of Second Life, and has in fact created a Second Life-based astronomy insitute called MICA – the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics. The idea is that, by producing SL-based data visualisation tools, scientists can create a much richer way of “seeing” data, allowing them to simply “walk through” them. MICA also organises seminars and events in SL. It’s a nice yet still a very niche field of research. I’m unconvinced about SL in its current form – but in the same way that microblogging is more than twitter, I imagine the opportunities offered by immersive virtual worlds are much greater than what SL offers today.
The next talks gave some nice examples of what is being done in this field in business, academia, and Google – which I guess lies between the two. Jonathan Fay of Microsoft Research showcased his baby, Worldwide Telescope, to rather stunning effect. WWT is essentially visualisation software that “enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope”, i.e. you can go visit the Universe from your desktop, in a variety of wavelengths. The visual effects are really very beautiful with very high resolution. The thing that makes it particularly attractive for professionals is the smooth linking between VO software and the ability to display FITS files. You can also record tours, voiceovers, add music etc. I reckon a slick WWT tour round your favourite star forming region, to which you can add displays of the actual data, could make an amazing talk. Go check it out! More info on releases and data on the WWT data blog.
From the academic side, Eli Bressert of the University of Exeter showed us his vision of astronomy in the future. Particularly nice was the AstroNavigator mashup that is being developed at Harvard, a kind of custom research portal that brings together literature search results, data catalogues, and visualisation (using WWT even!). I would love a tool like that.
John Taylor from Google Pittsburgh showed us SkyMap, the Android App he’s developed as his side project at the company. I’ve blogged about that before. Apparently SkyMap is excellent for impressing girls, so if you’re a lonely Android user tonight, get SkyMap and take it to the bar. It even works indoors!
And finally, Rob, Stuart and Chris North launched their latest project Chromoscope, which seems to be taking the web by storm. Go see.
Images: top – Chromoscope, bottom – A. Goodman
For more .Astronomy eye candy, see here.
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.Astronomy Day 4: Space Porn!
Well obviously that was the working title of this post but decided at the last minute not to the dreaded p-word on my blog. So thanks