Press Releases
From WikiSky
Improved Version of DSS2 on WikiSky
The brilliant work of mathematicians and programmers from SKY-MAP.ORG has enabled that company to achieve a breakthrough in the field of visualization of astrophysical information. The new version of DSS2 at WikiSky demonstrates both the technical and organizational capabilities of SKY-MAP.ORG. This statement becomes clear when you take into account the quality and the volume of work involved in the compilation of a new version of DSS2. Below are the snapshots of M74 galaxy, taken from WikiSky, Microsoft WorldWide Telescope and Google Sky. In all cases, the same survey - DSS2 - was used. However, it is apparent that there are significantly more details perceptible on the WikiSky image than on those of both MS WorldWide Telescope and Google Sky.
| WikiSky (M74) | MS WorldWide Telescope | Google Sky |
 |  |  |
Here is another example: the images shown below demonstrate the dark nebula (LDN 648). In this case, on the MS WorldWide Telescope image this nebula is completely invisible.
It is barely visible on Google Sky's, while it is clearly visible on WikiSky's.
| WikiSky (LDN 648) | MS WorldWide Telescope | Google Sky |
 |  |  |
The fact that the quality of images on SKY-MAP.ORG is significantly higher than on both MS
WorldWide Telescope and the Google Sky is noticeable in almost all areas of the sky.
Meanwhile, all three companies use the same source for images - the most complete and
detailed of all the full-sky surveys existing today in the world - DSS2. So how can such a
significant difference be explained?
In its raw form, DSS2 is a set of super-high quality monochrome photos (plates), achieved by using a variety of colour filters. In this form, DSS2 is a valuable scientific resource but it does not really appeal to the general public. To make DSS2 attractive and interesting to the public, sophisticated digital processing of these photographs must be carried out. Major factors that complicate this processing include the huge amount of data involved and the diverse conditions in which the original photographs were created. As a consequence, achieving an acceptable quality requires the fine tuning of dozens of parameters and conducting thousands of experiments. SKY-MAP.ORG has developed several effective tools specifically for these purposes. These tools have enabled significant optimization of the parameters for tuning and image processing. Of course, such great results in the processing of DSS2 were only possible due to the talent of the SKY-MAP.ORG team members, who combined complicated mathematical methods with the brilliant intuition of computer-science experts.
It is important to note that, in the opinion of SKY-MAP.ORG's developers, the quality of DSS2 images obtained to date is far from perfect. SKY-MAP.ORG is currently working on the new, improved version of DSS2 that will soon be available on the website. Below are a few more examples that allow comparison of the quality of DSS2 versions at SKY-MAP.ORG, MS WorldWide Telescope and Google Sky.
Galaxy IC 342
| WikiSky (IC 342) | MS WorldWide Telescope | Google Sky |
 |  |  |
Antares
| WikiSky (Antares) | MS WorldWide Telescope | Google Sky |
 |  |  |
The Most Detailed Sky Survey in the World Now Available on SKY-MAP.ORG
SKY-MAP.ORG has recently opened the access to the images of the DSS2 - one of the most detailed and comprehensive digital sky survey in the world. Thus SKY-MAP.ORG has strengthened its position as the absolute world leader in the field of visualization of astrophysical data.
DSS2 consists of thousands of high-quality photographs of outer space made by powerful telescopes located in the mountainous regions of America and Australia. Using an original technology, SKY-MAP.ORG has “tiled” these space photographs to cover the entire sky sphere, combine and match the pictures accurately with their real sky counterparts. The volume of DSS2 is huge. It would require a display of approximately 625000 sq. m. to view the entire survey at the same time in its full resolution.
SKY-MAP.ORG is the only system in the world in which all images are completely aligned with the data of astronomical catalogs. These data are automatically updated in the picture viewing process, and the system allows a user to obtain information about displayed space objects by simply pointing a computer mouse at them.
The integration of the DSS2 data into SKY-MAP.ORG is a breakthrough in the field of the visualization of astronomical data. The combination of the unique features of SKY-MAP.ORG with the unique data from the DSS2 system has given users opportunities that they could have only dreamed of. The SKY-MAP.ORG search system allows the user to find a high-resolution image of practically any astronomical object instantly.
DSS2 - is a wide array of data and enormous in terms of its volume and complexity. The base for DSS2 is a collection of 6000 super-high quality photographic plates (~ 6.5 x 6.5 degrees) made by The Palomar Observatory (San Diego County, California) and The UK Schmidt Telescope (Siding Spring Mountain in north-western New South Wales, Australia). In its digital format, the DSS2’s volume exceeds 7 TB, therefore approximately 10000 CD or 1600 DVD would have been required to store the survey. The SKY-MAP team has combined the entire data into a single all-sky survey, which consists of 50000 color 16 MPixels images. Therefore the subtotal for the entire survey is more than 800 GPixels. The software development and the parameters’ selection for the images have taken several months, and the total time of image processing on a powerful quad-core workstation has exceeded 900 hours.
NEWS@SKY (Science and Space)
The NEWS@SKY (Space&Science) is a unique opportunity to browse hundreds of scientific and popular science Internet sites without a single mouse click!
Every person must have a good knowledge of the basic trends in the development of modern science. By helping to make informed choices, define political preferences, dismiss illusions, this knowledge gives us freedom and partially answers a completely trivial question – “What are they spending my taxes for?” In the recent past, it was necessary to be a professional to become familiar with the lates scientific news. In the Internet age, everything is different. Scientific and popular science Internet publications make it possible for an average person to remain "up to date". Unfortunately, an average Internet user is physically unable to effectively browse hundreds of Internet sites available on each topic, therefore we usually never even find a huge part of articles and data that could be of a great interest.
The main idea of the NEWS@SKY (Space&Science) project is to make it possible for users to glance into an Internet article without wasting the time on visiting the website this article is published on. In the window of the NEWS@SKY (Space&Science) Internet site, a user can browse hundreds of scientific and popular science websites all at once. Each website is linked to a star from the real celestial chart. When the mouse cursor moves over a star, a user can see the latest headlines published on the linked scientific website. Then, in most cases, it is simple for this user to understand how valuable new articles are and is it worth spending time on actually reading them. Thus, by simply moving a mouse over a screen, without a single mouse click, within a matter of minutes, a user has the opportunity to briefly review the contents of tens, if not hundreds of scientific and popular scientific online publications. If in the course of this quick survey, a material suddenly draws our attention, a right click on this material's linked star allows us immediately go directly either to this useful article, or on its web site’s home page.
The NEWS@SKY (Space&Science) project presents a completely unique for the Internet opportunity to glance over the whole World Web and screen information quickly. This simple function of “glancing over” is used quite often in our daily routine. This ability significantly expands our information selection capacities and makes it possible to sift the irrelevant data instantly. NEWS@SKY (Space&Science) is an attempt to bring this wonderful function into the Internet and free a user from the necessity of entering electronic addresses, waiting for sites to load, and scrolling pages trying to find potentially interesting information. NEWS@SKY (Space&Science) – is a world that makes the information finding easy and quick. To do that, we will only need intuition, inspiration and a quick glance.
NEWS@SKY - Unique Information Website
The NEWS@SKY site makes possible viewing of thousands of Web resources simultaneously on one Internet page. In the course of several minutes, a user is able to search through the latest news headlines from dozens of publications, simply by moving a mouse on a screen - without a single mouse-click! The website provides a real map of the Sky, a celestial chart, on which each star is linked directly to a major News Website. Once a mouse cursor points at a star, all the news headlines from the linked website immediately appear. By clicking on a headline, the complete version of the article can be obtained.
For the NEWS@SKY users, the time spending on the sequential analysis of news and resource Websites is drastically reduced. Using NEWS@SKY, it is possible to rapidly navigate through hundreds of news headlines without leaving a single web page, in fact, without even clicking a mouse! A general view of the sky and the constellations outlines allow users to visually remember the location of different news sites and to locate them easily.
Any information website can be registered on NEWS@SKY. For each site in the registration process, it is necessary to select a star to which this site will be “linked”.
A click on a star opens a menu which allows either to move to the website associated with this star or to select one of the articles’ titles listed in the menu and move to this article’s page.
The Sky map at the NEWS@SKY site is unique by itself. The total number of the displayed stars is more than 500 million. We hope, rather sooner than later, all the existing news and information Websites will be represented on the NEWS@SKY.
Hubble UDF - Innovative Online Presentation
For the first time, SKY-MAP.ORG was able to present the famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field on the Internet using a visual form, convenient for browsing on a regular monitor screen. The SKY-MAP.ORG technology makes it possible to view this image at any scale. Furthermore, all objects from the UDF directory (10,000 galaxies) on SKY-MAP.ORG are identified. By pointing the mouse at any object, a user causes a browsing window to open. This window will contain brief information about the object. A mouse click on the object opens a window with detailed information and new articles about this object.
Hubble Ultra Deep Field, zoom=12 and zoom=16
The unique SKY-MAP.ORG technology can conveniently display any images, including enormous photographs of very high resolution. To view these images and photographs is often very difficult because of a computer’s limited capacity. Moreover, SKY-MAP.ORG allows, with ease, to combine multiple images into one. This amazing technology is a powerful tool, which makes it possible for the general public to easily manipulate data, which earlier could be accessible only by a limited circle of professionals due to technical reasons.
The Pleiades and Horsehead Nebula
Astrophoto Survey on SKY-MAP.ORG:
To Survive in the Universe
"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet."[1] The SKY-MAP.ORG authors completely share these concerns of Stephen Hawking. The only words we could add are that the greatest threat to the human race is the human race itself.
The SKY-MAP.ORG authors believe that the majority of people today are too focused on their everyday life and do not have enough time to talk about the outer space. A person who understands the ways of the Universe will see the Earth through different eyes. Our planet is so diminutive and vulnerable that any small by the space scale accident can instantly destroy us all. The Universe is enormous, and people are incredibly insignificant in the infinite space, full of unknown dangers. From this point of view, all our mutual rivalries appear at least ridiculous.
The SKY-MAP.ORG authors would like to believe that by presenting the Universe to people, it is possible to change their attitudes towards our planet, life itself and each other. The authors are confident that the understanding of a person's own place in the Universe gives people internal freedom, the ability to appreciate oneself and to focus on the real problems, rather than on the vain ones.
The authors are convinced that SKY-MAP.ORG, having huge educational and scientific potential, could play an important role in the popularization of the science about the Universe. The authors hope that they can draw the people’s attention to the task about which almost no one takes the time to reflect upon thinks in their daily life - The task of SURVIVING IN THE UNIVERSE.
The authors suggest that this is a sensitive and difficult goal, and that the more people take this goal to heart, the better the chances of survival humanity has.
Our Plans
It does not take a political scientist to understand that the state of our world is not getting more stable. The scarcity of natural resources is growing, there are more weapons on Earth than ever, the interests of different states are getting mutually exclusive, and there is no reason to hope that the governments will be able to negotiate and resolve the emerging conflicts peacefully. The world’s population grows, the competition becomes tougher, each nation pulls the blanket over itself and that blanket sooner or later will be torn into patches. A fight will begin for every patch. Domestic problems blind people, making it difficult to discern a problem of a different scale- the survival in the universe.
If Stephen Hawking is right (and scientists are often able to predict the future), the lives of our grandchildren depend on whether or not our children will dream of the stars. Children dream about things that are close to their hearts, things that are interesting and familiar. It makes no sense to expect that the dreams about the assigned theme will suddenly appear by themselves. From the beginning, the creators of SKY-MAP.ORG set their primary goal as to draw the attention of children to the outer space. That explains the intention to visualize the site’s contents as much as possible.
SKY-MAP.ORG embodies the idea of making the outer space tangible, so each object can be seen in several different forms, and all the information about this object is linked directly to the object’s image. This is a very effective and perhaps the finest way to attract the attention of children of all ages. The site’s creators consciously decided to make the site this way, but when the goal was achieved, the authors became so absorbed into the project and they began to focus more and more on expanding the site even more. The site creators have made a huge step forward, by implementing the integration of SKY-MAP with Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Astrophysics Data System (ADS). The authors left behind the boundary to which their original plans stretched.
First, from a simple interactive celestial chart, SKY-MAP.ORG has become the information resource, which can now provide detailed information about an enormous quantity of objects of the Universe. Secondly, the level of visualization has reached a level which the authors could not have dreamed about when they only began the project. So, although interest in the site expressed by amateur astronomers, astrophysicists, astro-photographers, teachers and the general public caught the creators by surprise, it was predictable. The site has become popular not only among children, but adults as well, and this fact has prompted the authors to rethink their goals and plans.
Click here to view the full edition of the article
How Our Vision was Born
I have never suffered from a lack of imagination. As a child, I spent many hours dreaming of stories written by Ray Bradbury. I carried books by Clifford Simak and Robert Sheckley to school instead of textbooks. I swore to my parents that I had witnessed first hand the stories described by Isaac Asimov. I considered Stanislav Lem a close relative because my great-grandmother was also from Poland...
I grew up and now I have three young children of my own. Every morning while I am driving them to school, we carry on very interesting conversations. "Papa, be cautious, hit the breaks, meteorite shower!!!," my oldest son shouts. While we are driving over a curved overpass, making a circle right to the highway, my children usually overwhelm me with the reproaches that I, allegedly, have not noticed a black hole that has changed the trajectory of our ship, and even that we have inadvertently crossed the event horizon… "I think we are in a different time period!”, - my daughter suddenly speaks probably recalling Chris Van Allsburg’s "Zatura". I usually support the game: "Yes, by my count, we are likely 200 years ahead" Here, begins to whimper my youngest son trying to estimate how old his mom is right now. The fact that we are going to pass the same black hole on our way home, and that will take us back to our native time comforts my son for the reminder of the trip. Our topic changes to how interesting it would be now to look at the ruins of the school and at the graves of the long-dead teachers. But here is the school. And the teachers are all in good shape. The mirage dissipates.
Nearly one year ago, I told a story to my children. The story goes something like this: we put our spacecraft into a circular orbit around the white dwarf Sirius B. "Where is it?", my oldest son suddenly asked. "It is no more than only two or three parsecs from here ", I laughed. “Papa, I want to know exactly where it is." My son frowns very seriously. "Yes, we always want to know where exactly we travel, but you just make it up!" my daughter added. It was at that very moment that I realized, that without a proper sky map, we were simply lost….
All the next night I browsed the celestial charts on the Internet. I considered them all – from the very complex to the overly simple. I discovered charts designed for professional astrophysicists, astrologists, ufologists or even for the kindergarten students. But among the hundreds of maps I could not find a single one that focused on my children’s specific area of interest. I was troubled and pointed out this dilemma to my friend Sergei. Sergei laughed: "Ha! In a second, I can find exactly what you’re looking for!” And he deepened in the Internet. Sergey browsed deep into the night. 10 hours later, he emerged with a disappointed look on his face. He said thoughtfully: "Yep ...” And that is how our vision to make an ideal sky map was born.
We knew from the very beginning, who will be the main user of our project – children. I had three, Sergei had two, and therefore we both had firsthand knowledge of what would capture a child’s interest. We wanted to present the children with the illusion of the space travel, giving them the possibility to freely wander throughout in the Universe. We wanted to demonstrate how the universe was complex and magnificent. And we hoped to find the right form of visual presentation that would help the children to understand their own place in the Universe without being intimidated by its grandeur. We want the children to feel how small and fragile our Earth is, and how ephemeral and accidental our lives are. We believe that the perception of a person’s place in the Universe has a particular relevance in our time when the world becomes smaller and at the same time more vulnerable every day. From this standpoint, it seemed to us that knowledge of the Universe is important not only academically, but also, because this knowledge will definitely have an effect on a child’s attitude toward the environment, the life, and the people.
Click here to view the full edition of the article
Article, Dec 7, 2006
Technological progress has altered many of the ways in which humans live, but has done little to change human beings themselves. Man has been trying to find his place in the world for thousands of years. We are still eager to understand our role in the universe and the universe itself. That is why it is hard enough to find a person who would stay indifferent or apathetic to the questions of cosmology. Those questions strike us immediately when we just glance up towards the night sky.
The Universe is breathtaking. Gazing up at the night sky, even without a telescope, we suddenly start matching our Earth standards to the scope of the whole Universe. Anyone who has observed The Milky Way even once is familiar with the feelings of loneliness and defenselessness. Right away, we imagine our tiny planet sailing through the cold black space.
A child who was once being overwhelmed by the unthinkable beauty and grandiosity of the night sky may not become an astronomer but he will definitely become a thinker.
SKY-MAP.ORG – is an attempt to show the beauty of the Universe to everybody – to small children and to their parents, to the amateur astronomer and to the professional astrophysicist.
