Mars is in opposition, meaning it’s closest approach to earth and it is glorious! But for people trapped by city lights with no large telescope, have you heard about SLOOH? What’s that you ask? Only the coolest online streaming telescope in the world, because you control it!
SLOOH is not an acronym, it refers to the term slew, used by observational astronomers when they are moving, or slewing, the instrument around. For a mere $49 you can be a basic member and slew SLOOH digitally, it’s basically a way to rent time on a professional quality telescope and observe the images it produces in real time on your PC or smart phone. Last night, SLOOH let the viewing public in for free, operators moving the telescopes from homes all over the world produced some beautiful images of Mars and other objects.
So, more images coming, enjoy!
My inner technogeek is bubbling over with joy.
the picture at the top of the article is NOT from Slooh; slooh’s images are in no way that detailed. Slooh uses webcams and small telescopes, and the images are further compressed to send over the internet.
Isn’t it misleading to write about Slooh, and use someone else’s picture?
Is that picture from Hubble? Or from Keck?
It’s from the Wired Mag article about SLOOH, serving here as a link with more info :)