What famous observatory has no lens and no mirror? Such research institutions weren't uncommon in centuries past - Claudius Ptolemy constructed such an observatory at Alexandria in the 2nd century, and in the 16th century, Tycho Brahe built Uraniborg ("the castle of Urania") and Stjerneborg ("star castle") to study the night sky. Now the modern age has its own version: the internet.

The wealth of astronomical data available online grows every day, collected from spacecraft such as Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra, as well as smaller, groundbased observatories around the globe. And there's a portal through which anyone can access these data to view the universe in its multiwavelength glory: the WorldWide Telescope (WWT).

This software runs on almost any computer or tablet via its web browser. You can also download an application to your Windows desktop. The WorldWide Telescope accesses the internet's amazing treasure-trove to provide beautiful all-sky imagery at dozens of wavelengths, as well as detailed images of many celestial targets. In addition, it offers links to in-depth information about individual objects, using diverse databases ranging from Wikipedia to NASA's Astrophysics Data System, which holds all astronomical literature published since the 1800s. WWT basically functions as an interactive web browser for the sky, a sky browser of sorts. Oh, and it's free.