* Astronomy

Some three million times a year, researchers, educators, and amateur astronomers all over the world ask NASA's SkyView virtual observatory to serve up images of some interesting corner of the cosmos. Since 1994, this digital archive has made access to and manipulation of celestial surveys its specialty. It boasts a full spectrum of data, ranging from radio to gamma-rays.
Many of the surveys hosted by SkyView are available through popular interactive tools like Google Sky and Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope (WWT). In fact, SkyView's most recently added survey -- the fourth data release from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite -- is available in WWT starting today.
SkyView visitors now generate an average of 300,000 images a month - up from 20,000 a month ten years ago. Over the same period, the average size of the requested images has quadrupled. So, in terms of pixels processed, SkyView's traffic has increased by more than 60 times.
SkyView originated as a way to help astronomers deal with the ever-increasing amount of survey data. It provides a single interface for accessing more than 36 surveys covering nearly 100 wavelength bands. Anyone can create an image without having to know the particular details of a survey's data format. Behind the scenes, SkyView handles all of the drudgery - transforming, precessing, rescaling, rotating, overlaying, and mosaicking data - so astronomers can get on with doing science.

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