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German Scientists Create Augmented Reality Scope
porkchop_d_clown writes "New Scientist is reporting that German engineers have developed a scope that combines imaging and planitarium software with a telescope to overlay what you see in the scope with stored images and information about the object being viewed." From the article: "Bernie Volz, president of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, Massachusetts, US, says an augmented reality telescope could serve as a useful educational tool. At star parties, bright objects such as the Moon, Mars and Saturn elicit 'the wow factor' from novices, he says. 'But when they look at galaxies or planetary nebulae or something that is just a fuzzy white spot in the sky, they don't have that kind of reaction.'"
Sounds a lot like Virtual Light, a book from William Gibson. More and more you'll see this sort of thing done, especially as technology shrinks down the size of these things. Imagine a pair of sunglasses that overlay details of the car engine you're looking at or map notes as you travel around town.
When I point it at the girl next door?
a space kaleidoscope!
What would the cost of such a device be? I don't see how this will help entice amatures if the cost owing such a decice would be more than doubble a normal telescope.
So what happens when you point it at Steve Jobs?
Augmented Reality Scope + Distorted Reality Field = ?????
When I was a kid, I got an astronomy kit for Christmas; it included a "finder" and several dozen sheets of clear plastic with stars, constellations, and names written in glow-in-the-dark ink on it. The idea was that once you knew which stars were supposed to be in the sky, you'd insert the correct overlay for that season and hour, and go out, find the guide stars, and then you'd have a ball. Don't get me wrong, it was entertaining as well as educational, but it was also a pain in the ass. We used it the next several times we went out to the country, but once we had seen most of the visible sky, it was done. I guess the point is, this kind of idea has been around awhile, but I'm really glad someone finally used technology to make it more informative for less of a hassle.
I'd worry that this could get to the point where the displayed synthetic image through the scope actually overshadowed the visible light you were trying to see. Using a backyard scope can be pretty disappointing to people who are used to stunning shots from space probes and Hubble. A few of the brighter nebulae and globular and open clusters are pretty, as well as the moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, but aside from that you have to really get into it to enjoy it. You have to get to the point where you get satisfaction just from finding and seeing an object, rather than being able to appreciate its beauty.
With AR technology they could superimpose a synthetic image of, say, the Andromeda galaxy (which is enormous but so faint as to be almost invisible in a backyard scope). It would look just like the pictures you see. You could also have a "digital zoom" which would let you see fine detail in some object, such as the Horsehead nebula which is very pretty but extremely small in a backyard scope.
The problem is that once you do this you are no longer doing astronomy but just looking at pictures, which you could do in more comfort inside at your computer than outside, bent over in a cramped position as you peer into a telescope eyepiece. It seems like it defeats the purpose of astronomy and will prevent beginners from sticking with it long enough to get into other aspects of the hobby.
Leave it to the Germans to perfect beer goggles.
But a lot of amateurs are already just "looking at pictures". While my wife and I do things the "old fashioned way" with a Dobsonian scope, I know several astronomy club members who do more work with Photoshop than with a Nagler.
Personally, I'd be more annoyed at a star party where someone's flashing these bright images on a monitor - or worse, projecting images up on a wall or screen, burning out everyone's night vision.
Clear, Dark Skies
by at least an order of magnitude.
A really nice Dobsonian reflector can be bought for $500-$1000 dollars; but anything with tracking motors and a computerized controller will cost at least twice that. Once you add in a specially cooled CCD sensor, you can double it again. Now add the cost of the display computer.
There are people who happily drop $15 grand on a scope and then build a special trailer to haul it in.
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First, getting glass polished and coated to the degree needed for really sharp views is expensive. Then add on the true cost killer - a good mount.
It's amazingly hard to create a tripod that is so stable you can view things at 300x magnification without them bouncing around because someone 10' away is walking on the same concrete your scope is sitting on. When you look at all the different models a company like Meade or Celestron sells, note that they really only have one or two different kinds of scopes all the variation in price comes from the different tripods they use.
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I almost got a headache trying to contain my laughter at work. Yeah, it's offtopic, but it's VERY funny and I think it's worth it!
I'm waiting for a telescope that points itself and lables the object. Images from better telescopes on another screen would be nice, so I'd know what I'm looking at. Kstarts controlling tilt and swivel and projected into the eyepiece would be great.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
http://www.celestron.com/skyscout/new/index.php
Celestron has been there and done it allready. This a great device if you have the means and a desire to learn about the heavens its highly recomended. And yes this is real its here and you can buy one instead of reading about it in slashdot and saying wouldnt that be cool.
I'm still trying to figure out what a planItarium is...
Tordek, Dwarven Warrior - Juegos de Rol en Argentina
Celestron seems to be doing a simpler version of this with their SkyScout unit: http://www.celestron.com/skyscout/new/index.php which uses GPS and inertial sensors (coupled I assume with a digital compass) to identify the object that you are pointing at, or direct you to a specific object. Actually this sounds like a better learning tool and is available off the shelf for $400.
On the other hand, an augmented scope which is slaved to a remotely operated scope is of some interest for those of us stuck in light polluted areas.
The sky scout is an interesting tool, but all it does is "narrate" a sky tour.
It doesn't overlay hubble photos of the object on top of the actual view.
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See, I know exactly what problem these guys were trying to solve. I regularly help out at public star parties and thousands of times I've heard people go "oh, is that all?"
To the naked eye, even Andromeda is just a white blob. People expect to see detailed images with dust lanes, color, and depth perception. What they *don't* expect is what they get - washed out light polluted skies where you have to let your eye relax and spend a good 3-4 minutes trying to pick out the details of the object you're observing.
In a very real sense Hubble and others have created false expectations in the public.
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Check the article - this scope isn't for optical use - it combines a real time captured image with a database of pre-existing images and overlays them on a project screen. Which also means you can't use it as push-to,
And if you can see something like, oh, the Veil nebula with a 6", you must live in a spectacularly dark area. I'd love to move there.
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Let's try that again...
Check the article - this scope isn't for optical use - it combines a real time captured image with a database of pre-existing images and overlays them on a projection screen. Which also means you can't use it as push-to, because there's no optical view to aim the scope.
And if you can see something like, oh, the Veil nebula with a 6", you must live in a spectacularly dark area. I'd love to move there. In the darkest skies in my area, I can barely make it out with my 10". At least 4 members of my club have scopes 18" or larger.
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Simple analogy: when it's dark, your pupil widens to let in more light, right? Well, the same principle applies to telescopes - the wider they are, the more light they can gather and focus on your retina or CCD.
The length of a scope, meanwhile, is a secondary characteristic usually tied to it's width, but is also related to the type of scope. a 10" Dobsonian and a 10" Schmidt-Cassegrain have similar light gathering capabilities, but the Dob will probably be over 4 feet long and the Schmidt-Cas will probably be half that.
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The article says more distant objects fail to elicit a "wow" but the Ring Nebula as seen from my daughters 10 inch Dobsonian is kind of cool. You do have to stare at it really hard to see it though (well... stare hard just off to the side of it actually).
However, note that the Andromeda galaxy is actually a very distended object, fairly large you might say, even as viewed from here. But most of it is so faint you can only really see a fairly small centre portion of it even with the ten inch aperture. Hence fairly total lack of "wow". Bugger!
I have some appropriate Orion filters for nebula viewing but where I live just outside London, even though I have only fields between my back yard and the horizon, there is so much light pollution from city lights (and moisture in the air) that you can't see shit. Hence my roster of wow-eliciting nebulae I can actually claim to have eyeballed meaningfully is pretty short.
Was I the only person wondering what kind of augmentation anybody would want on an oscilloscope?
I was just trying to imagine walking around those traces in some VR space.
I didn't realize they were selling HUDs for scopes.
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M31 is perhaps the most universal theme for a galaxy photo in an astronomy textbook -- it is after all the most nearby of the big spirals and I have seen more pictures of it than I can count. The pictures in a way are a cheat because they are deep time exposures with dodgy color rendition. When you look at M31, you are looking at it as it really is, and I have always thought there is some cool factor to that over looking at pictures.
The other thing about M31 is that the fuzzy blob that you see is only the central region -- M31 is not a tiny object, it is huge, but the spiral arms and dust lanes are so low contrast it takes very dark skies and experienced observing to see any of it. On the other hand, one can see M32 in the same field of a wide-field eyepiece and then one can also see M110 if you have a big enough scope, dark skies, and averted vision technique. Even if you don't see the spiral arms and dust lanes, a person can see the landmark satellite galaxies, well known in photos, and get a lay of the land -- that the fuzzy blob is just the bright central part and that the parts seen on photos go a ways off. People used to looking at Mars or Saturn are thinking that telescopes mainly magnify things that are tiny -- M31 would be quite viewable without magnification if you had enough light grasp.
From the font/format of the text in the top right of the augmented image i think he may be using celestia
--cros13
which has been mentioned several times in this forum.
The sky scout sells for about $400, but it's not even a telescope, just a sighting tube. Thus, it only "narrates" a few thousand naked-eye objects, mostly stars.
The device discussed in the *article* overlays stored images onto a real-time image of the object the scope is pointed at. Completely different level of tech.
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to use averted vision; or to wait in line for 30 or 40 minutes and then spend 2 or 3 trying to learn to use averted vision.
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On the other hand, an augmented scope which is slaved to a remotely operated scope is of some interest for those of us stuck in light polluted areas.
Do you know about SLOOH? I've been strongly tempted to join, but haven't made the leap yet...
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I can't make out Saturn's rings or the Veil nebula with my naked eye. A bit of magnification and improved light gathering is good to have when looking at the sky.
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At first I thought it is a bit strange that Kimm Groshong, author of the "New Scientist" article, refers to an interview with a guy in the US instead of someone of the team in Germany. But when I read the article I noticed that Kimm Groshong cannot even spell Saarbrücken (or Saarbruecken, but not Saarbrucken). It gets better: Kimm Groshong does not know how to spell Max Planck! Perhaps journals like the "New Scientist" should not be understood as first source of information.