Interactive Sky Map | Hacker News Reader

Interactive Sky Map

wikisky.org

39 pointsbelter14 comments

This is very cool, and looks like it targets you wanting to look stuff up and I will probably use it at some point.

But I feel that anyone looking at this and thinking "oh that's cool" should also try installing Stellarium (https://stellarium.org/). It lets you see what you can see in the night sky from any location/time on Earth, and is really useful for helping you identify what you're seeing in the night sky.

I don't mean to distract from this, because it's also great. It's just a second tool that anyone with a passing interest in astronomy should be aware of.

This actually looks exactly like how I had described making an app for kids aligning the various images from different zoom levels as well. That project died on the vine, but I'm happy to see that the concept would have had a chance of working.

Kudos to the dev for getting it much more completed than I got!

I don't want to cause undue alarm, but I appear to have discovered a crack in the firmament, and there is a slight risk that the sky may be falling.

https://www.wikisky.org/?ra=13.366907631355211&de=-42.526359...

You found the exit door out of the Holodeck.

If that's got you spooked, just try zooming out. The whole sky breaks apart showing you all of the stacked layers

https://www.wikisky.org/?ra=13.366907631355211&de=-42.526359...

maybe it's a unique feature of my browser config preventing something else working, or i'm just "holding it wrong" and using it in a way not intended by the dev. maybe they just want you to search and it take you somewhere vs randomly scanning the sky and then zooming in to it???

Lot's of hacking attempts on this page

https://www.wikisky.org/ui_index.jsp?locale=EN

I don't know why I expected this to show me the actual sky, like with current clouds/weather and lighting conditions at a point on Earth. Does that exist?

AFAIK, nobody has added the weather to Stellarium, but it does show sky at various times and places on Earth, with toggles for the ground and atmosphere. Web version:

https://stellarium-web.org/

Does anybody show real time cloud coverage via API to even pull this in? Obviously, it would have to be day time for your real time location. It would also be a view from outside the sphere so you'd have to do whatever inverting to see it the right way from inside the sphere.

After all of that, I have to ask why would one want this anyways? If it's cloudy outside so I can't see the sky, I don't want a tool to show me the same no sky view either.

In Australia the BoM pulls MODIS twice a day (they also collect it raw from ground stations as the sats pass over and route that onwards).

https://atmosphere-imager.gsfc.nasa.gov/products/cloud

does twice a day count as realtime?

Obviously not, how is it you don't grasp that?

How do you expect to get global realtime cloud coverage?

You can also pull from Doppler radar sites (real time, limited to ~ 250km radius about sites), mosaic and interpolate with MODIS

Because I specifically asked if anyone offers a real time, and you reply back with a twice a day response like that was helpful. How do I get a useful response from yours?

Zooming with the mouse wheel does not work.

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