I’ve heard various reference to remote access to scientific tools, but don’t know much about the topic. I bumped into a commercial telescope access site (SLOOH) which might be a model of the idea. (Readers with more examples, please comment.)
One of the problems that I ran into in my recommendations for a web 2.0 solution to continuing the university during a flu pandemic was courses that require special tools. I tried to think about music performance class, but didn’t try to tackle a hard science that uses equipment. SLOOH suggests the potential for an astronomy class that would have access to an observatory. Cost $99 for a year is not out of line with some textbooks. Perhaps the university should close its observatory and switch to an online tool on a permanent basis.
Gary Brown replied to this by email:
“Yes, I was part of a PNNL project a few years back. They cannot bring
in enough scientists to clean up the waste, so have been developing a
set of tools to bring in the experts necessary to facilitate the clean
up. Spectroscopes, microscopes, photon microscopes and others. I don’t
know the status of the project or tools…”
Google Earth has added Google Sky. This is another option that might work for teaching astronomy. If its like Google Earth, you can save files of specific place markers.