January 2nd, 2009
2009 - International Year of Astronomy
Happy New Year to all our visitors.
2009 is the International Year of Astronomy
From Wikipedia:
The International Year of Astronomy is a year long celebration of astronomy, taking place in 2009 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first recorded astronomical observations with a telescope by Galileo Galilei and the publication of Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia nova in the 17th century. The Year was declared by the 62nd General Assembly of the UN. A global scheme, laid out by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), has also been endorsed by UNESCO - the UN body responsible for Educational, Scientific and Cultural matters.
Both the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO are coordinating the International Year of Astronomy in 2009. This initiative is an opportunity for the citizens of Earth to gain a deeper insight into astronomy’s role in enriching all human cultures. Moreover, it will serve as a platform for informing the public about the latest astronomical discoveries while emphasizing the essential role of astronomy in science education.
Also take a look on Bad Astronomer’s blog post on the topic.
Tags: astronomy, IYA2009
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December 25th, 2008
Wikipedia is running Donation campaign 2008. So far they collected just under $4.5 million with goal of $6 million. The donation progress is slowing down lately. Common people! If you like idea of free information on internet (I mean really FREE, including ads-free content) please donate now. Least what I want to see in Wikipedia (as well as in WikiSky) it is annoying advertisements.
Tags: wikipedia
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December 24th, 2008
DSS2 all sky image (aitoff projection)
SDSS all sky image (aitoff projection)
RASS3 all sky image (aitoff projection)
GALEX all sky image (aitoff projection)
Astrophoto all sky image (aitoff projection)
IRAS (infrared) all sky image (aitoff projection)
H-Alhpa all sky image (aitoff projection)
We have updated images at top zoom level (0). We already had 0-zoom images for IRAS, H-Alpha, astrophoto and SKY-MAP surveys. New images include DSS2, SDSS, RASS3 and GALEX surveys. Also astrophoto updated with latest images. The top level images represent whole sky in aitoff projection with center in R.A.=12h, Dec.=0°
Tags: astrophoto, DSS2, GALEX, projection, RASS3, SDSS, survey, update
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December 22nd, 2008
Users who use our SkyWindow API reported that the interface stopped working when we put new surveys on-line. The has been fixed, thanks for the prompt report and sorry for the issue, we’re really miss QA department to test our builds before posting it on-line. Anyway I’m putting the SkyWindow here, so if you don’t see nice picture of the Messier 51 galaxy from SDSS in the window below, you are welcome to become our QA team 
Tags: API, bugs, SkyWindow
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December 20th, 2008
M31 on "bubble-like" GALEX sky survey
GALEX survey is now available on all WikiSky servers. The response might be a bit slow on first deep-zoom view of non-popular areas as full resolution images are downloaded and cached locally on demand.
Tags: GALEX, surveys
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December 19th, 2008
Helix Nebula in ultraviolet (GALEX)
M33 (Triangulum Galaxy) on GALEX
We’re about to finish work on new high resolution all sky survey - GALEX. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer is an orbiting space telescope observing galaxies in ultraviolet light across 10 billion years of cosmic history. GALEX GR4 imaging data contains about 31,200 2 color band frames with round image area of 2900 pixels in diameter each. It’s our third largest survey with its 200,000 megapixles of data after SDSS (1,100,000 MPixels) and DSS2 (800,000 MPixels). For now GALEX survey is available on two servers - server3.wikisky.org and server7.wikisky.org
Tags: DSS2, GALEX, SDSS, surveys
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December 18th, 2008
We’ve added to WikiSky ability to cut images from SDSS (DR7) locally. WikiSky is still using exetrnal cutout tool (casjobs.sdss.org) for SDSS DR6,5,4 and 3. The problem with casjobs is that it has limited projection options that causes siginificant alignment problems when you move far away from projection center. Our image cutout tool has rich projections options, including multiple geometric projections, rotation, reverse, projection center shift and more. Also we’ve added ability to view object on every available SDSS frame. When you open info page of an object you’ll see list of SDSS frames with the object right after list of astro image thumbnails. By clicking on one of the frames you’ll see full SDSS survey with the selected frame in foreground.
Tags: SDSS, surveys
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November 25th, 2008
We published new data release of SDSS sky survey (SDSS DR7). We also opened access to previous sky surveys since DR3 and added ability to show SDSS survey in wide angle. Before there was limitation to show survey in zoom level 6 and deeper due to angle restriction on remote server that hosts the survey’s images (SkyServer). After recent upgrade (thanks to everyone who supporting us) we’ve been able to upload wide angle images on our servers and fill the gap in survey rendering.
Tags: news, SDSS, surveys, WikiSky
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October 22nd, 2008
We finally put last server into production loop today, completeing upgrade cycle started three weeks back. The SKY-MAP service works at full speed now. Thank you for your patience.
Tags: news, WikiSky
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October 7th, 2008
Our new proveder Lunar Pages that we moved our front end pages to just 2 weeks ago cased us first headache - 1.5 hours downtime caused by one of their junior system administrator, who suddenly decided that our web site put in danger their server and without any prior notification recklessly suspended front page access that load-balances our dedicated servers. We decided to move to Lunar Pages based on many positive review of their high up-time and friendly technical support. Well, that action didn’t look “friendly” at all, making me believe to one or two complains that Lunar Pages falsified ratings by fabricating positive reviews. For now we will keep two front-end copies on different providers, but in future we’d like to move this last part of SKY-MAP system on dedicated server as well.
Tags: hosting, WikiSky
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