Show HN: Meteor shower, planet alignment, eclipse kit | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Meteor shower, planet alignment, eclipse kit

lifesprites.com

11 pointsjmtrevarton18 comments

I made this little walkthrough for finding the visible planets tonight and a meteor shower shooting start counter. Plus a little model of the solar system to try to wrap my head around what's going on. It's all based on your location if you provide it.

lifesprites.com/solar.html doesn't require account creation. The rest does. It's free, but you need an account.

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A note to anyone still checking this out.. The "sprite" knows the app well. It you're curious about anything just ask through chat. AND.. Pretty please, someone just try building something through the sprite. This is my dying wish for this thread... Please try the app this thing was built in. Create your own stargazing guide or share your telescope manual with the sprite so you can do the whole RAG pipeline with a question about how something works... maybe throw a recipe at the sprite and watch it create a step by step cooking guide. Tell it you care about your mom in California and to keep an eye on fires, earthquakes, air quality and weather. Ask the sprite about astronomy things. Switch to a new sprite and see how the capabilities stay the same but it makes you laugh more or less. Oh and ask it how it remembers you and itself and how it deals with time. I spent a lot more time on all of that than I did on astronomy. Please somebody actually use the app.

I'm seeing that there's traffic coming from Europe. Realizing I use US measurements for everything. I'm working on fixing that right now. Sorry for the oversight.

Oh or ask it to create a custom tracker for something. I've done game score boards, health trackers, meteor sightings. It's all made in a couple seconds. It's definitely not perfect yet, but I'd love feedback on the actual thing I made instead of the thing I made with the thing I made. If you have a minute I would appreciate it more than you know.

I still don't understand why there's a new moon when the moon is between the earth and the sun and a full moon when the earth is between the moon and the sun. Maybe if I stare at the model longer it'll magically make sense.

The new moon is in the sky when it's daytime. Crescents show at dawn/dusk. Full moon is night only.

hence the eclipse today

On the new moon, when the moon is between the earth and the sun, the light reflects back towards the sun, so you don't see it i.e. the moon is dark.

As for the full moon, the earth and sun are on the same side of the moon, so the sun is lighting the moon "from behind you" and you can see that.

I keep thinking there should always be a little bit of a solar eclipse when there's a new moon. I think my model might need a z axis. Or maybe something in my mental model just still isn't right.

That's right.

In these missed eclipse the moon is usually a little too high or a little too down. The moon revolves on a plane that is tilted respect the Earth's plane of revolution. These two planes of revolution intersect at the the two points called nodes.

See this picture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eclipse_vs_new_or_full_mo...

If the new moon happens to fall on the node then you will get a solar Eclipse.

Thank you! That's actually really helpful!

The model also places the moon way further from the Earth than it really is or else you wouldn't be able to see it as separate from the Earth, so that messes with creating a mental model for how the whole thing works as well.

It might make more sense if you consider that the three objects are not usually aligned, due to the tilt of the moon's orbit around the earth. In the case of the full moon, this allows us to see the fully illuminated moon even when we are between it and the sun.

Yeah that is the part that makes it confusing. Thank you!

If you do make something, you can share it with the link here. I can see what a good or bad job it did. Ask the sprite to share if needed.

Several hundred years ago, these combined would have been considered a major omen.

According to X, they still are. I think they just make for a fun day though.

Could barely see any of them thanks to cloud. 1999 was more exciting.

I think the measurements are fixed. Let me know if I'm wrong.

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