SKY-MAP.ORG

SKY-MAP.ORG
Web address Sky-Map.org
Commercial? No
Type of site
 Web mapping
Registration Yes
Available in Multilingual
Alexa rank
 Increase 113,263 (November 2011)[1]
Current status Active

SKY-MAP.ORG (or WikiSky.org) is a wiki and interactive sky map that covers more than half a billion celestial objects. Users can view the whole star sky at once and zoom in to view areas in greater detail. WikiSky includes many stars, galaxies, constellations, and planets, but it is still in development. Users can also edit information about different stars by writing articles, adding Internet links, uploading images, or create a special interest group for a specific task. The website, although still available for users to visit, has not shown much activity since 2010.

Software

Users may browse the sky in several surveys, including GALEX, DSS, and SDSS. In either mode, the user can access the name and a brief description of visible objects. This can be used to access more detailed information, including articles and different photo images.

SKY-MAP.ORG also has its own API so that code can be written to access maps, objects’ information and SDSS data. The API that has more functionality than the interactive part of the website currently uses.

Wikisky image copyrights

Some images from Wikisky, such as Digitized Sky Survey (DSS2) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) images are "non-commercial use".[2] The DSS datarights are held by multiple institutions.[3] SDSS data is also non-commercial use.[4] Images from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared) or GALEX space telescope (ultraviolet) are "PD-NASA-USgov".

Similar maps

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "Sky-map.org Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  2. ↑ "Copyright - DSS2 images". Wikisky (cached version from archive.org). 2009-02-23. Retrieved 2010-05-06.
  3. ↑ "The DSS datarights". Multimission Archive at STScI. 2007-06-12. Retrieved 2010-05-06.
  4. ↑ Michael L. Evans. "Non-commercial use". Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Retrieved 2010-05-06.

General references

External links