Blogs / Bad Astronomy

You simply have to see this video, which is truly and wonderfully astonishing. I can’t describe it adequately, but it shows how images can be linked together to create models of real structures, in this case the Notre Dame cathedral, using software called Photosynth. The images were all culled from Flickr, and stitched together intelligently via computer.

The power of this software is boggling. I can imagine it being used for astronomy… the National Virtual Observatory is a project that has been going on for some time, and it is trying to unite all observatories into one virtual one. The founders want to be able to normalize all images taken by all telescopes in such a way that you can query a database and come up with previously archived images that are useful for research. All observatories in the U.S. (and eventually the world) would have their data contributing to the project. Photosynth would be able to wrap around this idea and combine all this data naturally, nearly organically.

Fascinating. I wonder where this will all lead? Someplace, I suspect, that none of us could have dreamed even a few years ago.

Tip o’ the dew shield to Space Cynics.

PZ has the goods on the new "Creation Museum".

Too bad you can’t satirize something so dumb. But watch the video through to the end!

When the rebel Independents (known as Browncoats) illegally and unsuccessfully rose up against the Alliance, we in the upper echelons knew that squashing the rebellion would be a problem. It is easy to kill people, but killing ideas is far, far more difficult. Even the Blue Sun operatives have a difficult time of it (and controlling them is another issue entirely). Containing the ideas of rebellion has proven nearly impossible. Even getting the television show canceled didn’t help; it only strengthened the base of people allied with the Independents.

Now we have learned that the Browncoats are on the verge of successfully getting the word out via the fledgling spaceflight organization called NASA. Our attempts at stopping the launch of their primitive rocket by controlling the local weather have only been partially successful; the hail storm merely delayed them.

However, after some more thought, we have decided to let this go. The recordings being launched will only further show how useless it is to rebel against authority, and any attempts to censor it may result in further publicity for them, and a widening of the fan base.

Still, our Blue Sun operative on board the Space Station may yet prevail. Little do the Browncoats know she is with us and not them… even though she took the codename Suni despite our protests of being too obvious.

We’ll see how this turns out, but we have confidence we will prevail. For everything there is a season, but for some things, they only get one season.

Tip o’ the space cowboy hat to Interplanet Sarah.