Google interactive visualisation of 100,000 nearby stars

[Agemegos]

Here's an experimental tool from Google: a zoomable, rotatable projection of position (and other) data on 100,000 nearby stars. This might come in handy for SF games set in actual space in the future. http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/

• This is supposed to work best in Chrome, but it seemed fine to me in Firefox.
• There is an unobtrusive grey icon in the top right somewhere that lets you turn off the soundtrack.
• I would be even more pleased if the colour-coding of spectral type were more vivid and the brightness of the stars shown varied more in line with the luminosity of the stars represented.
• This uses the HYG, Gliese, Hoffleit Bright Star, and Hipparcos 3.0 data. I'd be pleased if they substituted Extended Hipparcos (based on the Hipparcos New Reduction) to avoid any consistency issues.

[Agemegos]

Do not use this map for interstellar navigation! The star they have labelled as "Alpha Cassiopeiae" is actually Alpha Canis Major—Sirius.

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by Brett

Do not use this map for interstellar navigation! The star they have labelled as "Alpha Cassiopeiae" is actually Alpha Canis Major—Sirius.

Interstellar Apple Maps?

[panton41]

It reminds me of Stellar Cartography from Star Trek. Then again ignoring natural language processing and becoming sentient at times Star Trek computers are being outperformed by real life computers on sheer number crunching so it's not a surprise.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Brett

Here's an experimental tool from Google: a zoomable, rotatable projection of position (and other) data on 100,000 nearby stars. This might come in handy for SF games set in actual space in the future. ]

I can't see how anyone could could use something to actually visualize the relationships between different locations using this tool. It looks pretty but in the end it's just a prop.

[Urban]

Is our stellar system really labeled "Sun" and not Sol or the Solar system?

For me the Oort cloud representation really made me realize that it stretches for a long distance and made it easier to get the idea that matter can be interchanged between different stellar systems.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Urban

Is our stellar system really labeled "Sun" and not Sol or the Solar system?

For me the Oort cloud representation really made me realize that it stretches for a long distance and made it easier to get the idea that matter can be interchanged between different stellar systems.

The latin designations are apparently falling out of favor now that English is the common publishing language of science.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

The latin designations are apparently falling out of favor now that English is the common publishing language of science.

No-one expects the Moon to be designated as "Luna" any more, though you do still see it sometimes. Labelling Earth "Terra" is even rarer.

I will draw the line at re-naming Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter as "Woden", "Frigé", "Tiw", and "Thunor".

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Brett

No-one expects the Moon to be designated as "Luna" any more, though you do still see it sometimes. Labelling Earth "Terra" is even rarer.

I will draw the line at re-naming Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter

Which aren't their latin names for Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn... those being Mercurius and either Iuppiter (or sometimes Iove/Jove, from which we get the term Jovian), and Saturnus.