Similarly, long-term sky surveys and supernova searches can be done with a zenith-pointing telescope: over the course of a year, the telescope can observe an entire band of the sky.

ECONOMIST: Mirror, mirror

We enjoyed a World Wide Telescope fly-over of Iceland, the time-lapse photographs from a SenseCam worn by his collaborator, Microsoft's Tim Regan, as he delivered material to the venue and some of the astonishing maps Eric Fischer makes by plotting the location data from Flickr photographs of major cities, along with some astonishing data visualisations.

BBC: It's digital, but is it art?

To do so, it will take 400 one-gigabyte snaps a night for 525 nights over five years (the remaining telescope time will be split between other science projects).

ECONOMIST: Cosmology

There is doubt also over the future of the James Webb Space Telescope in which Europe has a 15% share.

BBC: Smart UK navigation system for Mars rover