YAY! I finally got the telescope command integrated into Morti's code. Here's the rundown:
Morti's telescope command only works in the Observatory. If you try to use it anywhere else, Morti will let you know that you need to head there to use it.
The telescope uses the Google Earth plugin to display all sorts of information about certain celestial objects. The GE plugin is supported by IE 6+(supposedly), Mozilla browsers 2.0+ (I think), Google Chrome, and Flock 1.0+. I'm afraid the Google Earth plugin isn't supported by either Opera or Safari, but there's a "fallback option" available, and it automatically kicks in for folks who can't use the plugin, or who don't wish to install it.
If the object you're looking for can't be found in Google Earth, or if you didn't/can't install the plugin for your browser, you can still view images taken from NASA's APOD website, based on what you were searching for. Since Google Earth doesn't have any data at all on the planets, or their moons (their bad, not mine), all you can look at are the images, but the image feature is
MUCH more flexible.
If for some reason the script can't find a suitable image for your search, you'll be notified of the fact, and asked to try other search terms.
I'm planning on adding an "auto-correct" feature, for commonly misspelled astronomy terms, so that you don't have to look up the spelling of, say, Betelgeuse. This feature, however, is slated for "down the road a bit", so don't expect it quite yet.
The telescope feature is a "private" viewing experience, meaning that if you and I are in the Observatory together, and I call up the telescope, it only pops up on my end. If you want to see what I'm seeing, you would have to type in the same command.
Some suggestions for the telescope command are:
1.) Google Earth:
Most of the Messier Objects (e.g. M1, the Crab Nebula, M45, the Pleiades, etc.)
Constellations
Certain named stars (Betelgeuse, Polaris, Sirius)
2.) Images:
SOHO comet or SOHO CME (Both are pretty cool. Er... hot? Um..)
Any/all of the planets and/or their moons
Hoags Object (try just "telescope Hoag")
There are 2 minor issues that I've noticed. One is that sometimes, the image viewer loads several images in rapid succession. I'm looking into this, and will have a solution soon. The other issue is that sometimes, the image doesn't seem to match the search terms. This is something that I may or may not be able to do anything about. It's not a rare occurrence, perhaps, but it's uncommon enough that I've placed a low priority on it.
I'm also planning on placing a "Refresh" button in the image viewer, to reduce the number of times you have to actually type the telescope command while searching for a specific image. Again, this is "down the road" stuff.
I think that pretty much covers it. Take a gander, and shoot me some feedback. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
