[HN Gopher] Show HN: Galaxy Visualization
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       Show HN: Galaxy Visualization
        
       100k real ( +100k random ) galaxies from a sector. Visualized with
       Raylib.
        
       Author : avicted
       Score  : 43 points
       Date   : 2024-09-12 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | sega_sai wrote:
       | Astronomer here. Sorry for criticism, but I think it would be
       | much better if galaxies were shown in 3d. There are a lot of
       | surveys providing redshifts, hence 3d positions. Then one would
       | see the cosmic web, otherwise it looks a bit weird just projected
       | on the sphere.
        
         | tejtm wrote:
         | I agree, if you keep the heavenly filament model you should
         | probably restrict the view point origin to the center to have
         | at least have one plausibly correct interpretation.
        
         | avicted wrote:
         | Hi!
         | 
         | Thank you for the criticism! My input data only contains
         | celestial coordinates: - Right ascension in arcminutes -
         | Declination in arcminutes
         | 
         | I can perhaps try to get some redshift data and implement the
         | 3D position for each galaxy. Great idea! Thank you!
        
           | PeterCorless wrote:
           | Given that oftentimes you get a range of estimated distances
           | (in megaparsecs, MPc), maybe you can show the galaxy as a
           | line instead of a point. The innermost end of the line would
           | be the closest estimated distance. The furthest out end of
           | the line would be the furthest estimated distance. You can
           | put the median estimated distance as a dot on the line.
           | Either that or you'd have to use the median estimated
           | distance for a singular point.
           | 
           | Andromeda we have pretty-well established at 0.78 MPc, and
           | M32 at 0.77 MPc.
           | 
           | NGC 7768 at 120 MPc.
           | 
           | Whereas the largest galaxy we currently know of, ESO 383-G
           | 076, is at 200.59 +- 14.12 MPc. That gives a _variability_ in
           | distance far larger than the distance to most of our nearby
           | closest galaxies!
        
       | ugh123 wrote:
       | This is a cool project. One thing I was confused on at first tho
       | was the large earth sphere in the center of a what looks like a
       | spherical universe of galaxies. This makes it look more like a
       | cloud of satellites orbiting earth.
        
         | avicted wrote:
         | Unfortunately this is what is possible to render with only
         | celestial coordinates as input data. I'm looking into getting
         | redshift at data right now, so that I could have the camera at
         | the center of the earth and looking out from earth at different
         | galaxies with different distances and brightness.
        
       | akkartik wrote:
       | For anyone else trying this out on Linux, the build
       | infrastructure can all be replaced with just:
       | cp -i src/* includes/* .         g++ frontend.cpp -lraylib
       | ./a.out
        
         | avicted wrote:
         | Hi!
         | 
         | Thank you!
         | 
         | I added a variation of your good solution to the main branch.
         | 
         | https://github.com/Avicted/galaxy_visualization_raylib/blob/...
        
       | bbor wrote:
       | Fascinating, thanks for posting! Some interesting things I
       | noticed:
       | 
       | 1. I think we hugged your university site to death, lol.
       | 
       | 2. When it finally loaded, I saw this: " _Prerequisites:_
       | Programming 101 " given this work, that's pretty hilarious! You
       | at the very least used a Data Structure or two, which is
       | Programming 201...
       | 
       | 3. Am I correct in understanding the implicit approach is "look,
       | the blue ones are all bunched up and the red ones aren't, so
       | galaxies aren't randomly distributed"?
       | 
       | 4. Any takeaways in terms of things you'd like to add, similar
       | ideas that occurred to you, or other cool stuff? You seem like a
       | creative soul and I love dreaming up Three.js-driven space
       | simulations like https://platform.leolabs.space/visualization, so
       | I'd enjoy hearing any thoughts you might have :).
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-12 23:00 UTC)