What does WorldWide Telescope have to do with Microsoft Virtual Earth?
Chris Pendleton explains:
… since Microsoft Virtual Earth is a part of that Microsoft Research project I thought it would interest some of you that we decided to include some of the WorldWide Telescope into Virtual Earth. Did you know that the Virtual Earth data centers host all of the data for WWT and that the actual Earth in WWT are Virtual Earth tiles? Well, now you do.
Hmm Earth – Sky, but what of WWT got into Virtual Earth?
The constellations. More specifically, the stars. In the latest release of the Virtual Earth 3D control, we included the accurate placement of stars in space. The stars are drawn leveraging the Hipparcos catalogue and differ based on magnitude and color. The Hipparcos (HIgh Precision PARallax COlletion Satellite) catalogue is the de facto measurement of the stellar parallax and the proper motion of the stars.
Neat! Chris also reminds us we can still download WorldWide Telescope for free! Go go go…
LiveSide - WorldWide Telescope
LiveSide - Virtual Earth