Salt Lake City, Utah, USA – October 9, 2006 - Astrochannels.com, a division of Zeropoint Technologies, announces a world’s first in astronomy. Based in Utah, the concern is capturing live video of deep space objects with a telescope and highly sensitive video cameras. The video feed is then uplinked via direct satellite to the Web, and distributed to the public through a Webcasting provider over the Web for viewing by anybody with a computer and Web access.
“Betatesting is very close to being finished,” says Jason Davis, co-owner and spearhead of the operation. “We have had participants on several occasions from all over the world, and our audience is growing with essentially no effort on our part. It’s time to let the astronomy community know, hobbyists and pros alike, and really people everywhere, that it’s happening and it’s new and quite different. The educational value alone is…well...astronomical.”
Live views of objects include galaxies, galaxy clusters, nebulae (massive interstellar clouds of gas and dust), planets, globular clusters, the Moon, the Sun, etc., which can all be viewed in the comfort of home, office, or backyard observatory. Says Davis, “It brings a new and very expansive meaning to the idea of star parties, events that are sponsored by local, state and regional astronomical societies for the public at large to have exposure to the wonderful world of astronomy. Now, through Astrochannels.Com, everyone everywhere with access to a computer can have views of stunning objects in deep space that were previously only available to large commercial, academic or government observatories. The views are much like those in some of the best astrophotography, including the Hubble Space Telescope. The only difference is that it is live video, which is much more powerful than a static image.”
The Website also has live audio-video chat and other community involvement activities throughout the showings to enrich the experience, for commentary on the celestial bodies themselves, and for general interactivity with the hosts and other participants.
“The proverbial bottom-line is that it’s just plain fun,” says Davis. “It’s eye-opening, compelling, and those views are flat-out spectacular. Anybody who participates will see what I mean when they come have a look.”
Registrations for the next viewing experience are being taken now. The next showings are slated for the weekend of October 13 and 14, 2006. They ask for punctuality because “once the tour starts, there’s no going back, and nobody will want to miss any of it.”
Next showing free registration:
