[HN Gopher] I, Voyager: Open-Source Software Planetarium
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       I, Voyager: Open-Source Software Planetarium
        
       Author : Breadmaker
       Score  : 262 points
       Date   : 2023-10-19 11:43 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.ivoyager.dev)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.ivoyager.dev)
        
       | ta8645 wrote:
       | The web page takes a while to load, but is quite responsive and
       | illuminating once it gets going. Really well done.
        
         | jen729w wrote:
         | Tiny nitpick: the progress bar on loading is black on a bit
         | less black. It's basically impossible to see, so for a while I
         | thought that nothing was happening.
        
       | ashton314 wrote:
       | Beautiful. Reminds me of Stellarium, also open-source:
       | https://github.com/Stellarium/stellarium
       | 
       | As I kid I spent _hours_ pretending to be Sulu at the helm of the
       | Enterprise while flying through a field of stars. :) Good times.
        
         | BHSPitMonkey wrote:
         | For me, that was Celestia: https://celestiaproject.space/
         | 
         | Apparently both were first released in the same year, 2001.
         | Interesting coincidence!
        
           | ashton314 wrote:
           | Wait, I had both programs! I was playing Celestia!!! Thank
           | you so much for reminding me of that!
        
         | the__alchemist wrote:
         | You might try Space Engine too, for that experience.
        
         | two_in_one wrote:
         | Stellarium is great, thanks. Working on Linux is a huge plus.
         | 
         | It s would be perfect with telescope control. Just curious how
         | hard it is to attach some control and use Stellarium as user
         | interface? Scopes have standardized API for control and
         | cameras, which makes it easier. I can try...
        
       | freedomben wrote:
       | Wow, I am truly impressed. Great work! I'll be donating to help
       | this effort. This has already been incredibly helpful to me and
       | my son who is learning about the solar system. Being able to see
       | the orbits of each planet in such a fantastic UI makes it a cinch
       | to understand why Pluto takes turns being the most outer planet.
       | 
       | It's a Progressive Web App, uses Godot, so there's nothing to
       | install; it's just a web page!
        
       | lukasb wrote:
       | Works great on my M1 iPad except for textures not loading on the
       | planet of focus.
        
       | boobek wrote:
       | It's morning.. I thought I'll see a lot of open source software
       | codes/projects in some form.. :)
        
       | shafiemukhre wrote:
       | Love this!
        
       | hddqsb wrote:
       | Very cool. Some small criticism/feedback:
       | 
       | - Pluto is shown as if it is spinning around itself, but in
       | reality Charon (its largest moon) is so heavy (12.2% of Pluto)
       | that their barycentre
       | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barycenter_(astronomy)) is
       | actually outside of Pluto's surface.
       | 
       | - All the planets and moons are shown as perfectly spherical, but
       | for the smaller ones (e.g. Charon) that's not accurate. Not sure
       | if there is a practical way to fix this though.
       | 
       | - Zooming using the scrollwheel is backwards -- rolling the
       | scroll wheel up zooms out, but in all other applications on my
       | system it zooms in.
       | 
       | - The panels are very annoying. They can be hidden by unticking
       | in the top right corner, but they still come back on mouseover
       | (getting in the way when trying to click on a planet). I can't
       | find a way to completely close them; they can be moved around,
       | but they refuse to go offscreen. "Options > GUI Size> Small"
       | helps a little.
        
         | ourmandave wrote:
         | I'm glad you mentioned the panels come back on mouse over.
         | 
         | I unchecked one and it disappeared, but I had no idea how to
         | show it again.
         | 
         | I'm used to panels shrinking to a down caret or chevron (i.e.
         | ^, >).
        
         | hddqsb wrote:
         | EDIT:
         | 
         | - They do have several non-spherical moons and asteroids
         | (bottom left), which is awesome. I tried finding a 3D model of
         | Charon online; NASA's model
         | (https://science.nasa.gov/resource/charon-3d-model/) is
         | disappointingly spherical, on the other hand
         | https://3d-asteroids.space/moons/P1-Charon has a satisfyingly
         | bumpy surface (for half of Charon).
         | 
         | - Fixing the zoom direction is almost within reach -- there is
         | an option "Mouse Rate: In/Out" which defaults to 1 and can be
         | used to slow down / speed up zooming, unfortunately it won't
         | let me set it to a negative value to flip the direction.
        
       | daedalus_f wrote:
       | Lovely! Learnt about the Hildas.
       | 
       | One possible bug (??): when looking down on the system (press the
       | system button on the bottom centre panel, 90 degrees to the
       | ecliptic) the orbit of pluto will be projected to cross or not
       | cross that of neptune depending on which side of the system you
       | look down from.
        
       | otteromkram wrote:
       | Not on desktop, but is this similar to NASA's Eyes?
       | 
       | https://eyes.nasa.gov/
        
       | dade_ wrote:
       | Great project. I loved the idea of Visible Solar System on the
       | Commodore VIC-20, but the execution was a bit limited by the
       | technology 40 years ago to say the least.
       | https://www.vic-20.it/visible-solar-sistem-1930/
        
       | FredPret wrote:
       | Sometimes, my fellow humans come up with something so jaw-
       | dropping that I'm just grateful.
        
       | ulrischa wrote:
       | Wow very cool. Is the data available via an API?
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-10-23 09:01 UTC)