[HN Gopher] Moon
___________________________________________________________________
Moon
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 3047 points
Date : 2024-12-17 17:26 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ciechanow.ski)
(TXT) w3m dump (ciechanow.ski)
| doctoboggan wrote:
| As a big fan of both the Moon and ciechanow.ski this article is
| right up my alley.
|
| During the 2024 solar eclipse I was explaining to people how an
| eclipse _must_ occur during a new moon, and this article would
| have really helped. The discussion also made me realize how
| little most people spend thinking about the solar system and the
| relationship between the moon, sun, and earth. These things
| fascinate me (I think it 's just the sheer scale of it all), and
| I hope to be able to get more people interested as well. The
| solar eclipse was great for that!
| halyconWays wrote:
| People are impressed if you can name the current moon phase and
| tell them what it'll be next. But it only takes a mental model
| of where the sun, earth, and moon orbits are relative to each
| other. I also find people are intrigued by the concept of
| earthshine, and often haven't noticed it until you point it
| out.
| veunes wrote:
| Earthshine is such a cool phenomenon to point out
| GJim wrote:
| > People are impressed if you can name the current moon phase
| and tell them what it'll be next
|
| _I 'm speechless_
| wiredfool wrote:
| And once you internalize this, every image where there are
| moons pasted into the sky without understanding this will
| trigger you. It's like bad kerning. Once you see it, you
| can't unsee it.
| I_complete_me wrote:
| For a waxing moon the circular arc is on the right hand side
| and for a waning moon the circular arc is on the left hand
| side [Here in the Northern Hemisphere]. It would have been
| nice if the mnemonics Decreasing & Cresting worked but they
| don't. I personally use Developing & Collapsing to refer,
| respectively, to the waxing and waning moon. Has anyone a
| better couple of words than these?
| GuB-42 wrote:
| In French we have "premier quartier" and "dernier quartier"
| for "first quarter" and "last quarter" respectively. The
| mnemonics work with lower case letters: p and d.
|
| In English, the "d" for "decreasing" also works in
| lowercase, I guess that you can use "p" for "progressing".
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| > solar eclipse I was explaining to people how an eclipse must
| occur during a new moon
|
| Hey, that's the first the time I realized this.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| And a lunar eclipse only during full moon.... These
| constraints made it easier to predict eclipses in the past.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| The really satisfying thing for me was when I was on a sailing
| course and was instructed in how the moon causes the tides, and
| how the phase of the moon corresponds to springs and neaps.
| veunes wrote:
| Thinking about how the Moon, a body over 380,000 kilometers
| away, can perfectly block the Sun (something 400 times larger
| than itself) because of their relative distances is just mind-
| blowing for me
| trymas wrote:
| Similarly - as full moon must be opposite to the sun, full moon
| moonrise happens around sunset and moonset happens around
| sunrise.
|
| Also full moon rises the highest in winter, contrary to the sun
| - when it's at it's lowest[1].
|
| Funny things happen at the poles where sun is above/below
| horizon for half a year:
| https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/27750
|
| [1] the further from equator you are the more pronounced it is.
| sbaner2k wrote:
| the author is different gravy
| rogual wrote:
| This is what JavaScript is for.
| halyconWays wrote:
| We like the moon! Because it is so close to us.
| buildsjets wrote:
| And now I want a hot toasty sandwich.
| wcrossbow wrote:
| The Moon also plays currently a very special role in my life and
| my work days are dictated to a large extent by the current Moon
| phase :)
|
| It's not discussed in the article but we have detailed models
| (ROLO[0] and LIME[1]) for how much light is reflected from the
| Moon and can be captured by a telescope. Like this one can
| radiometrically calibrate a telescope, that is, find a mapping
| between the digital numbers coming out from the sensor and actual
| radiance values.
|
| [0] https://www.usgs.gov/media/files/rolo-lunar-model-and-
| databa... [1] https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/24/3649/2024/
| triyambakam wrote:
| > my work days are dictated to a large extent by the current
| Moon phase
|
| Could you explain further?
| wcrossbow wrote:
| At my current employer, Kuva Space, I'm among other things
| responsible for the commisioning and in orbit calibration of
| the payload. The Moon is a major calibration target for us,
| and between waxing and waining crescents I spent a lot of
| time analyzing Moon shots to perform radiometric calibration
| and camera parameter optimizations. The Moon doesn't know
| about weekends and images are not always downlinked at the
| most convenient times so that makes my life a bit more
| hectic.
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| Werewolf hunter? Sorority nurse? Doctor specializing in
| Cushing syndrome?
| bregma wrote:
| My wife is a social worker at the county welfare office and
| swears there is a strong correlation between phase of the
| moon and the nature of her work with the homeless. To the
| point where where she checks the calendar to schedule more
| time for crisis handling around the time of the full moon.
| gclawes wrote:
| Moon should be a state
| 725686 wrote:
| You might also enjoy minutephysics video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBcxuM-qXec
| guax wrote:
| Is there a name for this category of website? I am seeing content
| like this -- elaborate, animated, interactive -- more often here
| and I wonder if its part of a new corner of the internet I am not
| familiar with. Looks dope.
| rom1v wrote:
| I think this category is named ciechanow.ski.
| banannaise wrote:
| It's hypertext - a text-based format enhanced with other
| elements.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Amazing idea!
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| There are even dedicated markup and scripting languages for
| this. I predict this technology will be hot in 2025.
| guax wrote:
| Everything will be XML!
| banannaise wrote:
| I've even heard rumors of a data transfer protocol based
| on the concept.
| simonw wrote:
| https://explorabl.es/ calls them "Explorable Explanations".
| max_ wrote:
| This is the future of STEM education.
|
| Well written, decently comprehensive interactive documents.
|
| I think such formats should be prioritised instead of textbooks
| for creating learning materials.
|
| I am really surprised almost no one is doubling down on something
| like this. Brilliant comes close, but its not at this level.
|
| Everyone in Edtech seems to be running towards AI gimmicks.
|
| Thank you Ciechanowski!
| simonw wrote:
| I've seen these called "explorables" or "explorable
| explanations" before and I really like them. I've been
| collecting notes on them here:
| https://simonwillison.net/tags/explorables/
|
| Here's the website that coined the term: https://explorabl.es/
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Thank you for collecting and sharing these. I was so
| impressed by the submission that my first thought was to find
| some repository that contains the samples of a similar
| caliber.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| This is a really nice collection. Thanks for putting them
| together. I'm very partial to this writing style as well.
|
| I took a crack at making it slightly nicer to write this
| style of blog post via markdown with codeblocks you can mark
| to execute instead of display (and hot reload + gist
| rendering support)
|
| It makes the source easy to read, even on GitHub preview,
| etc.
|
| It's what I've been using to write my recent posts.
|
| https://github.com/jasonjmcghee/mdxish
|
| But at the end of the day, content itself and the code that
| powers it is more important than any framework you might use.
| simonw wrote:
| That's a really neat system. Reminds me of Observable
| Framework, which I tried here
| https://github.com/simonw/observable-framework-
| experiments/b... to create this:
| https://simonw.github.io/observable-framework-
| experiments/pa...
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| ah ` echo` is smart - I didn't realize that would
| properly render in markdown editors / github, hence the
| comment approach.
|
| That observable system you made here sure renders
| beautifully.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| I consider Kerbal Space Program to be the most rewarding game I
| have ever played. Going into this page I was already somewhat
| familiar with many of the concepts it presented because I had
| encountered them during gameplay. However, having the ability
| to modify parameters was very helpful for visualizing different
| kinds of gravity assists. The game does not provide a way to do
| this, so it augments my understanding massively.
|
| I agree that these interactive learning materials are
| incredibly promising towards actually understanding what is
| being presented. In other words, this is how I actually grok
| the concept.
| mattkevan wrote:
| Brilliant.org[1] does a good job of using explorables in their
| learning materials, some of the best I've seen in that
| category.
|
| That said, Ciechanowski is on another level entirely.
|
| [1] https://brilliant.org/
| triyambakam wrote:
| I do think that explorables are useful in understanding, but
| man I feel overwhelmed with them. I feel like I do my t know
| when and where to stop. I feel less anxious with a plain PDF or
| similar. I guess it's a skill issue.
| n42 wrote:
| > I am really surprised almost no one is doubling down on
| something like this.
|
| I've thought a lot about this - every time a new one is posted.
| I wish we could live in a world where this is what STEM
| education looks like. I think that, ultimately, it's just very
| high labor cost, and edtech is not known for being highly
| lucrative.
|
| Bartosz does these as a labor of love, and the world is better
| off for it.
| ciabattabread wrote:
| We used to have those educational multimedia CD-ROMs back in
| the '90s. Look up Microsoft Encarta 97 on YouTube.
| jcims wrote:
| This is wonderful!!! Generalizing here but we really do take the
| moon for granted.
|
| I bought a 'big ass telescope' a few years ago in an effort to
| bootstrap a hobby that I'd flirted with for decades but never
| really committed to. It's a Celestron 11" SCT and I really had no
| idea what I was getting into. When I think of space I think of
| things that are really small in the night sky, planets, galaxies,
| nebula...(turns out most of them aren't *that* small and I
| overshot the targets I had in mind)
|
| I kept trying to photo galaxies and star clusters and all of
| these exotic things but had a bunch of trouble with tracking with
| long exposures. Out of frustration I ended up just pointing it at
| the boring ol' moon to at least get used to the equipment and
| workflows.
|
| I fell in love with Luna.
|
| The magnification of this scope really allowed me to explore the
| surface in a way I never had before. I got to know the 'map' and
| suddenly related to our celestial neighbor in a whole new way. It
| was also the very first image I was actually not embarrassed to
| share - https://imgur.com/a/t9b1Uug
|
| I since then improved my knowledge and technical skill but the
| month of the moon at the end of 2021 was really pretty
| spectacular for me.
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| It's a lovely shot.
| swifthesitation wrote:
| It really is a great shot. I always daydream of showing today's
| technology to the great the great minds from centuries ago. Not
| sure why, but I do.
| mettamage wrote:
| And I'm here for it! :D
| jcims wrote:
| I'm sure it's different for everyone but I think it would
| just be the unbridled enthusiasm and love for the subject
| that they would show, the tidal dopamine surge of all the
| mysteries that have been unlocked, the validation of all the
| mysteries that remain. It would be amazing.
| arnarbi wrote:
| I have the same fantasy. I think it's appealing because I
| imagine they'd be able to appreciate all the amazing things
| behind it more than most people, dead or alive.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Me too. Sometimes in big concerts I can't help but think
| about what would the avg roman say if he would just appear
| here?
|
| "Wow so many lights" is the first answer I can think about
| right away
| js2 wrote:
| An 11" SCT is a commitment to use. Do you have it on a
| permanent mount?
| jcims wrote:
| No, but i did just get a wedge so I could start tinkering
| with polar alignment.
|
| I also bought a Seestar S50 last year and have been having an
| absolute blast with it. Feels like a renaissance in astronomy
| is upon us.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Welcome to the hobby (even if a few years late). Pretty much
| everyone has the same experience as you. You buy the telescope,
| and then realize you need to buy a telescope for your telescope
| to use as a guide scope for accurate tracking for longer
| exposures.
|
| However, those long exposures are much more likely to get
| photobombed by an airplane or satellite. So you're really
| better off taking shorter exposures with the highest ISO you
| can get away with, and then just stacking them.
|
| I have a much wider scope that I can do 30s exposures unguided
| before trailing starts to become noticeable. If you can get
| away with 15s, you'd be amazed at what you can achieve with
| newer sensors.
|
| Just some hints to help the disappointment at bay and maybe get
| you playing with the toys
| gowld wrote:
| Is there an information resource to find local telescope owners
| who give access to the public for viewing?
|
| (startup/app idea!)
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just search for local star parties in your area. Although, be
| willing to bend the definition of local depending on how
| light polluted your area is. My local is 4 hours away. Also,
| some colleges have viewing nights available. Even in light
| polluted areas, you can still see things for public viewings.
| They just suck for anyone wanting to image.
|
| There are tons of sites listing them, but I doubt there's an
| absolute exhaustive list as it's all self-reporting to each
| of the sites. Your app idea would just be another in a list
| of places, sort of like the xkcd app about yet another
| standard.
|
| https://www.go-astronomy.com/star-parties.htm
|
| https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/annual-
| starg...
| groby_b wrote:
| Good God, no.
|
| Pretty much every telescope owner will happily show you the
| sky - after you've made an effort finding out where they
| gather, or if you just happen to walk by. The
| instagrammification of astronomy, with hordes of influencers
| rolling by without concern for the subject matter, just to
| insert themselves everywhere, is too horrible to consider.
|
| It's not hard to find. Type "<city> astronomical society"
| into your search box. They have public websites, horribly
| outdated. Reach out to them, join the group, and you're more
| than welcome. But may there never be "an app for that"
| ghxst wrote:
| Here in the EU you can look for "dark sky parks" which are
| basically parks or areas in nature designated for night sky
| viewing because of the low amount of light pollution and they
| are great spots to meet people, I'm pretty sure you have
| these in the US as well. I advise bringing a red light if you
| have to do some walking. Another recommendation would be to
| see if you have any actual observatories near you, some of
| them have events for the public every now and then. The
| people in this community are some of the friendliest I ever
| met and love sharing their interest and enthusiasm.
| yread wrote:
| > turns out most of them aren't _that_ small
|
| I haven't realized Andromeda is 4x bigger than the Moon until I
| tried to take a picture of it
|
| https://mikkolaine.blogspot.com/2014/01/size-of-deep-sky-obj...
| (not my picture)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _just imagine if you could see all those galaxies and
| nebulae with your naked eye_
|
| I think I'd wind up buying the Vision Pro if it can
| realistically portray seeing the world in a wider spectrum
| than our eyes can. I don't want cartoonish images of objects
| pasted into the sky. I want to see what I would perceive if
| we _e.g._ gene therapied a few extra cones into our eyes to
| see more of the EM spectrum.
| ghxst wrote:
| Oh boy if you're willing to spend money to look at the
| night sky - but feel like AR falls short currently - I
| highly recommend looking into NODs, something like a
| PVS-14, you might be able to pick one up second hand for
| the price of a new vision pro. Unfortunately
| photomultiplier are still quite expensive even if they are
| only gen2 :( some really cool tech though.
| veunes wrote:
| Hmm, spending that much on seeing the stars vs. augmented
| reality... I might lean toward the stars
| ghxst wrote:
| Definitely not arguing with you! Though I have a soft
| spot for analog tech in this area. I think AR might still
| have a very bright future, especially if you're learning
| about the night sky. I've spent many hours scanning the
| sky with an app I found that had an AR feature that
| allows you to point your camera at the sky and get an
| overlay on everything (including sattelites!).
| Jolter wrote:
| I'm interested in that app if you have a link.
| ghxst wrote:
| It's called Star Walk 2 https://play.google.com/store/app
| s/details?id=com.vitotechno... Just a FYI that if you
| choose to purchase the app you will still have to
| purchase the "all in one bundle" inside the app, I
| believe it's ~$5 and it gives you the sattelites,
| extended solar system, deep space objects and more.
| There's also a free ad supported version that offers the
| same base catalogue.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Night vision goggles have made immense improvements in
| recent years. Although the new technology in night vision
| is also very expensive. If they ever become accessible to
| the average consumer, they will change the world
| profoundly. Because you can walk during night as if it was
| day.
|
| For astronomy, they probably won't make a difference, but
| it shouldn't be impossible to make goggle technology that
| converts astronomically interesting wavelengths to the
| visible spectrum.
| danparsonson wrote:
| It's not the wavelengths that are the problem but the
| exposure times; even with our best sensors we still need
| long exposures to capture compelling images of galaxies and
| nebulae. I don't think it will ever be possible in real
| time.
| naikrovek wrote:
| that's not a problem with _displaying_ that information.
|
| the post you replied to is not wanting to see like Geordi
| LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation; in real
| time. they're (at least I think they are) wanting to
| visualize already captured information, such as x-ray and
| radio emissions overlaid a view of the night sky.
| danparsonson wrote:
| > ...I want to see what I would perceive if we e.g. gene
| therapied a few extra cones into our eyes to see more of
| the EM spectrum.
|
| Maybe I misunderstood this part then?
| pavlov wrote:
| That's incredible. Illustrates how incomprehensibly big
| galaxies really are. There's a thing 2.5 million light years
| away which still appears 4x bigger than the Moon.
| teleforce wrote:
| Very much incomprehensible, not only for outer celestial
| objects since we most probably will never fully discover
| our own physical earth planet or human body, let alone our
| thinking brain and our elusive consciousness.
|
| Andromedia the closest galaxy to Milky Way (MW) is
| estimated to have one trillion stars while MW itself is
| estimated to have 250 billions. God really knows how many
| of them really exist and who's counting anyway? It's a
| blind faith at its worst to pretend we know the numbers
| since it's most likely that the earth and its sun bound
| astronomers (including the farthest distance ever Voyager
| spacecraft) are several orders of magnitudes off the marks.
|
| It's also estimated that's more than a trillion number of
| stars inside the two galaxies (Andromeda and MW), not
| number of planets, not even the number of moons (the very
| title of this HN post).
|
| Overall it's also estimated that there's more than a
| trillion number of galaxies (not stars) inside our
| universe.
|
| To make matter even more complicated, all of these
| celestial objects are moving in very high speed relative to
| each others and none is static. These galaxy are millions
| or billions light years away from earth and by the time
| their EM signals has reached earth, they probably have
| already dissappeared or morphed into something else.
|
| How about non observable part of the universe?
|
| How about other parallel universes that physicists claim to
| exist?
|
| My personal conclusion to this mind boggling facts is that
| to assume and conclude there is only earth that has living
| creatures is very much premature and naive.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Similarly, I came to learn some selenography writing a "voxel"
| (well, ray-casting) web game ... where you shuttle about the
| moon from crater base to crater base.
|
| I became kind of fascinated with the craters, names of the
| craters (and history of those names), the "dark-side" and all
| the wild topology there. (Although I think I have tiles for the
| entire Moon, you don't have the fuel to get there.
| haltcatchfire wrote:
| Did you publish it? Can we see?
| ddejohn wrote:
| I was curious too. GP's github is in their profile and it
| looks like this is what they were talking about:
|
| https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Mooncraft2000
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| What a cute game, loved trying it out!
|
| if y'all only care about the game:
| https://mooncraft2000.com/
| GloucesterBoy wrote:
| If you're curious about the naming of the Lunar craters,
| the first full English translation of the Almagestum Novum
| is being worked on here:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/1739314565?ref_=pe_3052080_397514
| 8...
| Moru wrote:
| I really like that one, so sad that the framerate tanks after
| one or two flights. Tried all the settings on the debug menu
| but only reload helps as you stated in the documentation.
| Happens both in firefox, firefox developer without plugins
| and in chrome.
|
| I remember playing another moon lander 35 years ago in school
| on the swedish computers "Compis". Was a very basic version
| but I still loved it, it's something with slow heavy objects
| where you need to plan ahead what, when and how much you need
| to do.
| typeofhuman wrote:
| Can you see Saturn in good detail? I'm interested in picking up
| a telescope.
| malfist wrote:
| An SCT11 should have no problem making out the rings of
| Saturn and maybe a band or two. But it's not a good beginner
| scope. Long focal lengths are hard to manage if you don't
| know what you're doing
| leeoniya wrote:
| i have the 6" celestron sct, and on a clear night this is
| pretty much the amount of detail i can make out directly:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/telescopes/comments/pmlbne/jupiter_.
| ..
|
| i'm sure with tracking and stacking it would be much more.
| ghxst wrote:
| Just to clarify is that the detail you can make out with
| the naked eye or a digital censor? If you meant digital
| censor, how much of a difference with the naked eye would
| you say it is? I've had this telescope on my list for some
| time but am not sure if my expectations are realistic.
| carl_dr wrote:
| Yeah, naked eye, although with a 6" telescope, I'd expect
| it to be a bit fainter - certainly that is the case
| through my 9.25" scope. I can often see a band in its
| rings.
|
| It also depends a lot on atmospherics, if there is a lot
| of turbulence in the atmosphere it makes things less
| crisp (well, "dancey", like looking through a heat haze.)
|
| Look up your local astronomy group and go along one
| night, and see for yourself before buying anything.
| Saturn isn't great at the moment (assuming London-ish
| latitudes) but Jupiter is around all night and you should
| be able to see it through a variety of scopes and
| eyepieces if you went along to a sky party.
|
| Honestly, the first time I saw Saturn through a telescope
| I nearly cried. Truly amazing.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| What a beautiful photo! You have a good eye.
|
| I really like the way you caught the craters along the
| terminator, including the one at the bottom where you see
| sunlight on one rim and the rest is visible only because of
| Earthshine.
|
| The Moon is such a great subject that you can also get some
| nice shots with just a camera and a telephoto lens. Here are a
| couple of mine.
|
| Moon over Menlo:
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/geary/24118398766/
|
| Moon, Mars, Venus:
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/geary/16598905865/
| jcims wrote:
| Thank you! You as well!
|
| The shadows are very much my favorite part of this kind of
| shot. It provides so much visual texture to the surface,
| showing not only how rough it is but how smooth it is. the
| 'scar' to the bottom right (aka Alpine Valley
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallis_Alpes) is always one of
| my favorites.
|
| Thanks again!
| drcwpl wrote:
| Fantastic photo - you made me think about getting a telescope
| wraptile wrote:
| For people thinking of getting into moon gazing try binoculars
| first!
|
| Laying down on your back, plopping a nice pair on your eyes and
| just looking at the moon is a fantastic experience. Aside from
| much better UX, binoculars also have depth-perception which
| makes the visuals all that more engaging.
|
| If you have really nice clear sky in your area you can easily
| do that with stars and some planets as well.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| If you got good bins try looking at Jupiter as well.
| Typically on a clear night you can see several of the moons.
| cogogo wrote:
| This blew my mind a few years ago when I got some decent
| binoculars. Depending on their positions you can see all
| four of the Galilean moons - even from a vantage point in a
| major city.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I saw them entirely accidentally. I was looking at the
| moon through bins and checked out The Other Bright Thing
| nearby and was shocked to see what looks like little dots
| next to the big one. As Galileo himself would have done,
| I immediately went on the internet and consulted a sky
| chart, which confirmed that I was seeing the moons of
| Jupiter.
|
| I still occasionally drag my friends out to look at the
| moons on a clear night. It's my favorite bit of practical
| astronomy to share.
| agos wrote:
| I was able to take pictures of them with a DSLR with a
| decent zoom lens! I used Stellarium to check the positions,
| waited for a very clear night, and was able to get a very
| nice photograph of that and of the Pleiades.
| ghxst wrote:
| This is great advice! It's really amazing how much more you
| can see with a regular decent pair of binoculars. I treasure
| the memory of being able to see some of the star clusters
| that I could only vaguely make out with the naked eye for the
| first time, now I basically bring them every night walk :).
| bb88 wrote:
| I think the problem is that I would like to have an image
| stabilized version of that. Even small ticks of you fingers
| amplify quickly into shaky images.
|
| I think instead of an eyepiece (or in addition to one) most
| consumer telescopes should include a usb image sensor that
| can screw into where the eyepiece is.
| ghxst wrote:
| A lot of binoculars have a mount for a tripod which I can
| definitely recommend trying out of you happen to have both,
| or at least consider if you are planning to pick up a new
| pair.
| pests wrote:
| You can buy generic replacement electric eyepieces that fit
| dkresge wrote:
| There are also image stabilized binoculars. I have an older
| Canon 10x30 that I absolutely love (enough to tolerate the
| plasticizer now breaking down on the rubberized exterior)
| cogogo wrote:
| I have the same, about 10 yrs old and agree the image
| stabilization is awesome.
| speleding wrote:
| Depth perception? I would think objects as far away as the
| moon shouldn't produce a meaningful difference between the
| left and right eye. But that does tell your brain they are
| far away, so perhaps that's what you mean.
| exitb wrote:
| It's not really depth perception, but there is a
| significant difference in how objects are perceived when
| looking with both eyes. It's also applicable to binocular
| splitters used with a single mirror/lens telescope.
| Moru wrote:
| Your brain can also do 1+1 and end up with 2.5 or even 3
| in the brain :) I have really bad eye sight on both eyes,
| one can not see enough alone but both together see much
| better than I would expect on the same distance.
| berkes wrote:
| I was a kid living in Botswana when Halley passed earth.
|
| We watched it every night through binoculars.
|
| Marvelous clean air - humidity around 0%, just some dust. No
| light pollution (there wasn't an electricity grid in some
| 100km around, just a handful of small diesel aggregates).
|
| The binoculars were more than enough to see the comet, its
| tail. And even get a feeling of the tail arcing in three
| dimensions.
| yard2010 wrote:
| Any specific binoculars you can recommend?
| doetoe wrote:
| The most important is that they capture enough light, for
| which the lenses must have a large diameter. 50mm is
| typical. Magnification around 10x is good. This is referred
| to as 10x50. I have a Celestron Skymaster 15x70 myself,
| which is specifically for night sky observation. The 70mm
| is very good, but the weight and the magnification make it
| difficult to hold still without a tripod, though you can
| still use it without, e.g. lying on your back
| eth0up wrote:
| Try a good monopod. They're significantly more portable
| and give just enough stability in most cases to give good
| views whille allowing less restricted movement than most
| tripods.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| I have a set of Vortex Diamondback HD 10x50s that are
| pretty affordable and do a good job with the moon (and
| hunting near dawn and dusk). The optics are definitely
| better than I expected for the price.
| darkwater wrote:
| Some suggestions of mark/model of binoculars good for that?
| With a budget of 1000$ /EUR(I could stretch it a bit more if
| it's worth the extra money)
| cogogo wrote:
| I have the Cannon 10x30 IS from a long time ago and they
| are the best binoculars I'd ever tried. I'm pretty shaky so
| the image stabilizing is game changing. I'm sure the more
| powerful pairs are incredible and in that case image
| stabilization is a must.
| https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/lenses/binoculars
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Are binocular superior to monocular for that use case? I
| thought binocular were good for depth perception which I'd
| assume doesn't matter here?
| veunes wrote:
| Sometimes the most meaningful connections are with what's been
| right in front of us all along
| varispeed wrote:
| Why everyone is taking black and white pictures of the Moon?
| It's 2024!
| bradarner wrote:
| This is why the internet is amazing!
|
| Awe-inspiring. Beautiful.
|
| How does the author build these pages? Looks like it is React.
| The entire blog must be custom built, no? Or is this built on top
| of an existing CMS?
| maest wrote:
| Hand crafted, artisanal JavaScript.
| adrianh wrote:
| No React to be found (and good riddance). It's two vanilla
| JavaScript files:
|
| https://ciechanow.ski/js/base.js
|
| https://ciechanow.ski/js/moon.js
| bradarner wrote:
| Cheers...Chrome dev tools must have tricked me.
|
| Also nice that the author didn't minify it. Interesting to
| read through.
| undebuggable wrote:
| Funnily, this JavaScript would not pass through most modern
| job interviews.
| floxy wrote:
| For those of us not in the know, why not?
| undebuggable wrote:
| Inconsistent style. Once global functions (that's so
| 2000), once prototypes (that's so 2010). No lazy loading,
| no modularization, no state management. Mixing variable
| declarations with initializations, one "var" declaration
| in the code. He probably haven't heard about TypeScript,
| transpilation, and doesn't understand static typing.
| Fells like a show off. That guy is an absolute no-no.
| ghxst wrote:
| Was going to ignore this comment until the last 2
| sentences. I rarely come across sites / articles that do
| this good of a job at explaining something I think
| calling it a "show off" and saying the author is an
| "absolute no-no" is a bit rude and I don't agree with it
| either. If anything I appreciate the code as it is, it's
| very readable at least to me.
| undebuggable wrote:
| My comment was /s of course. JavaScript from 2000-2010
| era can do wonders especially if you leverage modern APIs
| and enormous performance of modern browsers, instead of
| silting it up with transpilation, frameworks, and layers
| of modules. Unfortunately simplicity is signalling a
| beginner and amateur in enterprise working environment.
| ghxst wrote:
| Dang my bad, I feel silly for not catching the sarcasm in
| hindsight. Apologies.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| 17.6k LOC just for one post to educate and entertain people.
| Beautiful.
| klabb3 wrote:
| As usual, it's not the tech.. it's the business model.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| You definitely don't need a CMS for a blog. I'd expect most
| HNer blogs you see here are either html files or markdown
| processed/styled into html files. I bet various templating
| solutions are popular too, which just output html files.
| astrange wrote:
| IME the reasons to have one are that you want people to
| comment and you want other people to write posts sometimes.
| xnx wrote:
| The very first interactive element is a great example of why
| ciechanow.ski is so great. Similar animations from other sources
| would probably limit to 28 frames and fake the image (using a
| simple mask). On ciechanow.ski there are hundreds(?) of frames
| and uses a bump map(?) to show accurate crater shadows on the
| moon's surface.
| neves wrote:
| Which technology or frameworks is he using? The animations and
| interactivity are great.
| prabhu-yu wrote:
| I have same question. Is it simple <canvas>
| saagarjha wrote:
| WebGL.
| Sateeshm wrote:
| Plain js and webgl
|
| https://ciechanow.ski/js/moon.js
| moffkalast wrote:
| Just as the founding fathers intended.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It goes way further than simple bump mapping. In terms of
| texture, there is a color texture and a height map, and the
| final rendering use real-time physically based rendering (PBR)
| techniques that takes into account the properties of the lunar
| regolith, as explained near the end of the article.
|
| Color space is taken proper care of, and for images as rendered
| from the Earth point of view, there is a model of the
| atmosphere, so that the sky looks blue during the day and the
| Moon looks red at the horizon.
|
| There are no pre-calculated images and only 3 photos. All the
| shading is done in real time using realistic models.
| parpfish wrote:
| years back i came across this moon-related modeling problem on
| stackoverflow (i'm not the original poster)[0] and it's stuck
| with me that this seems like something that should have an easy
| solution.
|
| An HN thread about how cool the moon is seems like a good place
| to resurface it.
|
| But the question is this:
|
| The crescent of the moon face is tilted based and the angle of
| that tile depends on the viewer's latitude on earth. Is there an
| equation that maps viewer latitude to the tilt of the moon
| crescent?
|
| [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22392045/calculating-
| moo...
| axus wrote:
| One thing I've noticed while looking at the Moon, the "dark" part
| is lit enough to see that it's an orb and not really being eaten
| by darkness. This webpage doesn't do that, I guess it's from a
| different perspective without the earth shining on the Moon.
| ribcage wrote:
| I often wonder if it's just my imagination or is it really like
| that. I am still not sure.
| scoreandseven wrote:
| Think of how when the moon is in the sky at night the ground
| on Earth is lit up and not fully black. Same with the moon,
| it's not totally dark on the night side of the moon if the
| Earth is in the sky from the moon's perspective.
| pierrec wrote:
| I guess you alreay know this, but for reference this is caused
| by earthlight (light diffused and reflected by the earth):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlight_(astronomy)
|
| Sometimes it's clearly visible, but often I agree that it's
| hard to tell if you're imagining it or not.
| jval43 wrote:
| There's a short paragraph on "earthshine" towards the end.
| RALaBarge wrote:
| Thank you, I am going to show parts of this to my daughter!
| d42muna wrote:
| This cracks me up. "Look at these beautiful orbital paths.
| Cover your eyes when it's explaining the barycenter. Cover your
| eyes!"
| edferda wrote:
| I haven't read the article but Bartosz articles are so good and
| enjoyable to read that I get excited whenever I see a new one pop
| up. I have already set some time aside tonight to read it with
| care.
|
| Bartosz if you are reading this: thank you so much for these
| articles. You truly are an inspiration and I can only hope one
| day I get to be as good a communicator as you are.
| eitau_1 wrote:
| On an unrelated note, on the Sunday we had a major lunar
| standstill i.e. the full Moon at its highest orbit (as seen from
| northern hemisphere). It happens every 18.5 years.
| empath75 wrote:
| I can't tell you how excited I get everyone time he does a new
| one of these. They have all the delight and wonder of a child's
| pop-up book, but with the depth of a college text book.
| Consistently one of the best things on the internet.
| dheera wrote:
| Related personal story:
|
| On January 6, 2023, at approximately noon, I happened to take a
| flight from Svolvaer, Norway to Bodo, Norway, which, took me from
| 21.8 degrees latitude to 22.8 degrees latitude, which took me
| from [just inside polar night] to [just inside daytime].
|
| I saw the moon at takeoff and the sun at landing.
|
| It was an absolutely miraculous, specatular coincidence -- the
| latitudes I was flying over, the time, the date, the moon phase,
| the flight path.
|
| This flight allowed me to have a full 3D view of space -- the
| moon, the Earth, the sun, all within an hour.
|
| It was the first time I felt that the moon and sun weren't just
| discs flying around the sky randomly, but rather that I was the
| one flying through space, had a 3D sense of where the moon was
| behind me and where the sun was peeking ahead of me, and that the
| Earth felt curved as I moved out of the view of the moon and into
| the view of the sun.
|
| My pictures and whiteboard illustration:
|
| https://imgur.com/TYFAdoP
| belfalas wrote:
| The moon is so interesting, easy to forget how much it affects
| life on Earth because we see it all the time.
|
| Like others in the thread, I have a telescope and it's a
| wonderful experience pointing it skyward while it's still light
| out and the moon is visible. Then I can really see all the
| craters and "pock marks" on the surface. (My telescope isn't good
| enough to be able to see anything during a full moon, it all just
| becomes washed out.)
| MaxGripe wrote:
| De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
| divbzero wrote:
| What an amazing exploration, from watching the sun set over moon
| craters in the first graphic to the simulation of how the Moon
| formed and the lucid explanations of tidal locking and axial
| precession.
|
| As with many of the author's posts, the underlying code can be an
| interesting read as well: https://ciechanow.ski/js/moon.js
| throw-the-towel wrote:
| ciechanow.ski on the frontpage? Instantly upvoted.
| siavosh wrote:
| It really is a marvel. I'm grateful society has such subject
| matter experts, that they have the technical skills to share it,
| have a passion to share it, and dedicate the time and effort to
| do so at such a level.
| mbb70 wrote:
| Bartosz Ciechanowski is a subject matter expert of everything,
| given enough time: https://ciechanow.ski/archives/. I still
| remember reading 'Gears' and being completely blown away.
| Terr_ wrote:
| There's a collection of little facts I imagine being useful if a
| human got stranded somewhere in the universe and helpful aliens
| weren't sure where to take you. Without books and electronics,
| what could you memorize that would help them search and identify
| Sol/Earth in their big astral database?
|
| This is one of them, the seemingly-pure-coincidence of solar
| eclipses where the apparent size of the moon equals the apparent
| size of the sun.
|
| Ratios in general would be handy, since they would not depend on
| difficult-to-calibrate units: The moon is ~1/6 times the mass of
| our Earth; the biggest planet Jupiter/#5 is 2.5x the mass of all
| the rest and 5.2x the distance from the sun compared to Earth/#3,
| etc.
| TomatoCo wrote:
| Once more extrasolar surveys are done it would be cool to see
| how unique we are. If something (possibly LLM based) could rate
| your description and see how many systems you'd have to visit
| to find Earth again.
|
| "Eight major planets, the outer four are gas giants. Planets 2
| and 3 are nearly the same size. All of the other planets, edge-
| to-edge, fit just inside the orbit of my planet and its moon."
| Terr_ wrote:
| > If something (possibly LLM based)
|
| Whoah, hold the "AI" hype train there: I didn't design it
| that way, but an LLM is close to the _worst possible thing
| you could use_ for this.
|
| 1. LLMs are incapable of real math or symbolic logic, so they
| aren't able to you whether your statement is approximately-
| true, and they can't tell you if it's _useful_ either. (Lots
| of planets are spherical.)
|
| 2. You're trying to communicate with _literal aliens_ that
| won 't have _any_ of that English training data the LLM draws
| from. They don 't have any preconceptions about a "second"
| and "year" being related but one is bigger, they won't see
| the same colors or even have a 1:1 color sense, and they
| absolutely won't be inferring that Jupiter and Saturn are
| connected by pantheon-naming.
|
| A lifetime exile from your entire species and culture is not
| something you want to leave to an LLM.
| TomatoCo wrote:
| Ah, I think I wasn't clear enough and you misinterpreted
| me! I'm absolutely not suggesting an LLM for solving the
| "describe to aliens what our system looks like" problem or
| doing the assessment of our description.
|
| I was trying to describe how, in the future when we have
| surveys of thousands of other star systems, it would be fun
| if there was a website that played the role of the aliens.
| We would describe to it in plain language what our system
| looked like and it would tell us if we did a good enough
| job to get home or not. To me, this means finding how many
| rows match in a database. I'm not sure how to turn plain
| language into a database query but, if pressed, today I'd
| reach for an LLM.
| hosolmaz wrote:
| Wake up babe, new Bartosz Ciechanowski post dropped
| bbx wrote:
| I saw the domain name and thought the same thing. Always an
| event to see a new post of his.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Meredith, clear the rest of my day.
| askvictor wrote:
| I was just thinking about him yesterday while browsing HN,
| wondering when the next post would drop.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There was a post earlier today about mechanical watches, of
| course this site was linked again.
| funksta wrote:
| Easily one of the best sites on the internet, in my opinion
| andrepd wrote:
| Early Christmas present!
| praptak wrote:
| The initial simulations might give you a slightly wrong idea
| about the shape of Moon's orbit around the Sun. It doesn't form
| any loops (you can see that in the later more precise simulation)
| and is in fact convex (this one is a bit harder to see).
| hassleblad23 wrote:
| Ds
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Amazing
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Really excellent. Since I live in a high rise I've marked the
| cardinal directions on the floor and walls and been trying to
| develop a spatial intuition for the ecliptic, essentially trying
| to be able to easily imagine myself tilted in the northern
| hemisphere subtropics rotating around a sphere rotating around
| the sun. End goal would be an automatic intuition of where to
| look for the Sun, Moon, and all the visible planets. This sounds
| insane typing it out but its very passive and genuinely
| satisfying. Not being on the equator and the natural tilt of the
| Earth are the two factors that make this most difficult, of
| course.
| FredPret wrote:
| I get this. You've got me wondering how to get this project
| Wife Approved Status
| dmd wrote:
| My wife came with 9 telescopes in various states of
| disrepair.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| That's okay; we don't kinkshame here.
| andrepd wrote:
| Nerds often marry other nerds ;)
| seumars wrote:
| Check out the North Paw Directional Anklet. It's basically a
| compass that vibrates whenever you face magnetic north. From
| what I've read people seem to develop a sense of direction
| pretty quickly.
| incognito124 wrote:
| You'll be sad to find out the company went out of business a
| long time ago
| bregma wrote:
| The one they gave me seems to vibrate when I face any
| direction but only when I leave the house.
| jmkd wrote:
| I built an ecliptic pathfinder in the Black Desert in Egypt a
| few weeks ago. It's a piece of land art comprising three piles
| of rocks on the near horizon, each marking the position of
| sunrise (if you are stood in an approx 200 metre by 5 metre
| strip) for the summer solstice towards the north east, the
| spring and autumn equinoxes to the east and the winter solstice
| towards the south east.
| jcims wrote:
| It's not insane in the least. I try to always make a point of
| observing the ecliptic when I travel, it creates a wonderful
| interconnectedness to places all over the planet. There are
| going to be some lovely conjunctions in the next few months
| that will provide a great opportunity to share this with
| people. It's actually pretty intuitive when there are 3 or 4
| visible planets in a row once someone points it out.
| lizmutton wrote:
| Another masterpiece I am sure!
| hassleblad23 wrote:
| Amazing!
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| Bartosz has a patreon where you can sponsor these works, and on
| it he posts very detailed explainers of why and how he created
| each page.
|
| The one for Moon is at https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-
| moon-118130286
| seumars wrote:
| Thank you for sharing! Big fan of Bartosz's articles and
| somehow didn't think of looking him up on other platforms
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| You don't have to, the link is at the end of the article :)
| 0xEF wrote:
| You guys are reading articles to the end?
|
| /s
| IanCal wrote:
| To be fair on this one, most of the times I complain
| people haven't got to the end of some short story before
| asking. This is an _enormous_ and dense resource. Great,
| but I started scrolling and got surprised.
| 0xEF wrote:
| 100%, it is definitely a commitment but it is a really
| incredible blog. I wish I could find more like it! I saw
| the mechanical watch post the other day for the first
| time and was hooked.
| danw1979 wrote:
| Thanks for pointing this out. Bartosz absolutely deserves some
| paid support for his efforts.
| IanCal wrote:
| Does this come with the page/code to store, or is there a good
| way of doing this? I looked a while back for properly archiving
| pages and their code but things were all in the works, maybe
| that's more solved now.
|
| This kind of thing seems like a truly outstanding resource, and
| I'm happy to pay for it, with the desire to have this for when
| my kids get older.
| ustad wrote:
| Holy crap! only afew hours ago i was scraping his site and
| hoarding the delicious javascript. I wondered how long its been
| since the airfoil post and, bam! , a new article! More juicy
| javascript to hoard!
| vldmrs wrote:
| His blog posts are always amazing, very detailed and
| exceptionally visual
| hassleblad23 wrote:
| It is fascinating how much the Moon matters to us, yet it is
| largely ignored.
| hei-lima wrote:
| Wonderful! A masterpiece.
| nikitasherman wrote:
| I'm glad to know the author and me share the same earth (and the
| moon)!
| paulpauper wrote:
| Without even clicking I now know what it is going to be. Single
| word title and lots of votes.
|
| I wonder if single word titles helps with SEO
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Moon
|
| right on front page #7 . good job
| 0wis wrote:
| Wonderful ! Even if I am not super interested in the topic, the
| explanations are so clear and the animations so nice that I have
| admiration for the work done. Full mastery of the web medium that
| makes an explanation way clearer that any paper could. Would love
| to work on a similar projet on economics & personal finance.
| Thanks for sharing !
| mopsi wrote:
| Something has gone terribly wrong when such beautiful, but
| essentially simple interactive graphics feel like an expensive
| and exotic gift, rather than something readily supported by
| widely used editors. A decade or more ago, I would've turned to
| Flash to create something like this, but now I wouldn't even know
| where to start.
| astrange wrote:
| Well, you could read his source code. He doesn't "use"
| anything, but if you want libraries I think Processing and
| Three.js are popular.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I had to wait ten or fifteen minutes for a couple orbits to see
| if it would stick, but a little moon formed in the accretion
| example:
|
| https://postimg.cc/Y4LTzLBk
|
| This made me happy.
| beeforpork wrote:
| Great as usual!
|
| But I do prefer metric units.
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| As with all of his stuff, you can click on the unit to switch
| it to metric
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Related: last Sunday (December 15th) was the *luna*stice - the
| northernmost endpoint of the moon's 18.6 year cycle during which
| the rise/set points move between north and south. On Sunday it
| was as far north as it gets, and for the next _generation_ it
| will move slowly south and then back again.
|
| This cycle has been known to some humans for more than 3000
| years, and appears to have helped structure architecture/layout
| at various American locations such as Chaco Canyon (New Mexico)
| 1000 years ago. It takes a minimum of 3 generations to establish
| the cycle, which indicates something about the level of social
| and scientific organization in these societies.
| erbdex wrote:
| "And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the
| Earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with love like that. It
| lights up the sky."
|
| -- Rumi
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| Ciechanowski is likely the best content producer of our time,
| absolutely fascinating reads. Imagine having such a person as a
| teacher - he could probably excite students about any scientific
| topic.
|
| I'd love to spend my time working on such articles when I'm
| retired :)
| danw1979 wrote:
| This isn't an exaggeration ! We get but one or two of his
| articles per year but they always delight the kids and big kids
| too.
|
| No cookie banner, no pop ups, no sponsored links or ads. Just
| amazing hand-crafted web content.
| zerop wrote:
| Can we give reference of these articles to LLMs and get them to
| write articles like this for educational contents and produce
| similar WebGL graphics code to render images. I mean, just use
| this style and produce educational content using AI. that might
| make the studies more interesting.
| markfsharp wrote:
| Wow! Just wow! Very good.
| thallavajhula wrote:
| Huge fan of Bartosz. I love their posts. I saw the post link and
| it instantly put a smile on my face 'cause I know I would love it
| even before opening the link and the post did not disappoint.
|
| In the 2nd graphic, they use of location to display the tiny
| person on the globe _chef 's kiss_. The attention to details is
| brilliant. I am 40% through with the post and I couldn't contain
| my excitement to post here. This is lovely.
| doawoo wrote:
| as a kinesthetic learner I really cannot say how invaluable the
| interactive widgets are, so wonderfully done.
| Jun8 wrote:
| I've always wondered how different human culture would be if we
| had multiple moons. Related: the relationship between lunar and
| menstrual cycles is an open question, eg see
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3716780/ or
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7840133/
| unit149 wrote:
| An order of magnitude above and below the speed of a falling
| object - exporting the JSON file that has its unadulterated
| gravitational force data. Dark matter and Newtonian mechanics are
| epiphenomenal modes of interlocking processes.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Could anyone recommend some introductory reading on orbital math?
| I had an idea rolling around in my brain for a while to make a
| little website simulating how various mathematicians and
| philosophers visualized the moon's orbit over the centuries, but
| I'm not great at math, lunar history, or math lunar history, so
| I'm curious where I'd get started on the reading.
| snicker7 wrote:
| Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics by Arnold is a good
| introductory book.
| tejendrasingh90 wrote:
| Your journey from frustration to fascination with the moon is
| truly inspiring and beautifully captured!
| GuB-42 wrote:
| If you are interested in shaders, you can look at the source
| code. https://ciechanow.ski/js/moon.js
|
| Like with all the other articles, it is straight up readable JS,
| with WebGL graphics, no dependencies.
| kupopuffs wrote:
| One file? Yeesh
|
| Only kidding. Cool stuff, wish it were split up though
| Sateeshm wrote:
| This guy is a legend.
| wwarner wrote:
| bravo, really clear
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| The other side of the moon looks quite different to the tidally
| locked side we see from earth.
| neves wrote:
| Do you know Which technology or frameworks is he using?
|
| The animations and interactivity are great. I'm really impressed.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| It's almost all handmade. And he uses a lot of scripts to
| generate his scripts.
| Borzadaran wrote:
| Wow, hats off to Bartosz! He has clearly poured so much time and
| effort into crafting this incredible blog. Hold on, though--check
| out their other articles too. Each one is a gem! Let's show some
| respect for his hard work--here's his sponsor link. Go ahead and
| support him!
|
| https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-moon-118130286
| sema4hacker wrote:
| I could spend a lifetime trying and still not create a web page
| as spectacular as this.
| veunes wrote:
| This is a fantastic example of why the Internet can still be a
| magical place
| smusamashah wrote:
| One thing which isn't clear (from the animations at least) is how
| moon revolves around sun.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_of_the_Moon#/media/Fil...
|
| When looked from distance, it looks more like revolving around
| sun while getting effected by earth. Which is to say, th motion
| does not look like a spring/spiral at all, but like a wave
| instead.
|
| https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/266426/what-does...
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Minutephysics did a video about this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBcxuM-qXec
|
| It looks like a dodecagon with rounded corners, but the video
| goes into more details.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Whenever these get posted I always play with it a bit, then look
| at the scroll bar and notice I'm about 10% through, if that. Has
| anyone ever read one of these to the bottom?
|
| I guess in my mind this is just entertainment. I enjoy the
| visuals and interactivity, and marvel at the technical
| implementation, but I don't need to spend hours going through it.
| The only reason I would is if I actually wanted to learn this
| stuff, but so far nothing has come up that I need/want to learn
| at that level of detail.
|
| I guess my question is, is this _actually_ useful for education?
| Has anyone felt like they 've _really_ learnt something (ie. they
| could teach it to other people), after reading through one of
| these?
| mjochim wrote:
| I have worked through a significant portion of the GPS one, and
| I learned a lot. I didn't do it in one go, though. Learning
| takes time.
| hejira wrote:
| Fantastic!
| pytonslange wrote:
| Bartosz, your website is the most beautiful, glorious thing to
| ever grace my browser. I'm not even sure how to put it into
| words, but I LOVE YOU for doing what you do. Thank you for your
| brilliance. Thank you for making my day every time I visit. Never
| change. Please, just keep on being your awesome self.
| red_admiral wrote:
| Any time I see a new article on that domain, I know I'm going to
| be distracted from work for an hour or so while I have a great
| time. Bartosz, your work is amazing.
| itissid wrote:
| Very cool. Question about the interactive image at the top of the
| page: why do the craters appear more distinct near the boundary
| of the dark and bright side of the moon and kind of much less on
| the brigh side surface far away from the boundary?
| jackcooper wrote:
| The craters appear more distinct because the low angle of
| sunlight casts long shadows. Where sunlight hits more from
| above, shadows are minimal, making the craters less pronounced.
| _wire_ wrote:
| > It was also the very first image I was actually not embarrassed
| to share - https://imgur.com/a/t9b1Uug
|
| I was goofing around with the ciechanowski moon model and noticed
| that either this image or ciechanowski's simulation is flipped
| 180 (mirrored not rotated).
|
| https://ciechanow.ski/moon/
|
| So I googled moon images to see which one might be flipped (it
| would be amazing if the ciechanowski model was inverted) but
| after looking at about 100 images, 90/100 or more seem to be
| composites based on the same image. Not just that the moon
| presents the same face, but all the google results look based on
| literally the same image. So what if that image is flipped?
|
| On an oblique note, I assume google reports such repetitions to
| almost any search-- I've noticed there's a web dark pattern for
| results repetitions; see Amazon and Netflix. And AI results
| appear to be an obscenely amped-up repeater.
|
| I'm interested in repetitiond news too: take Google news without
| any personalization-- how the web may create an appearance of
| copious information that's actually very limited, and maybe very
| biased or completely wrong-- e.g., Mandela Effect.
|
| For example news of U.S. foreign affairs is routinely absurdly
| biased and narrow, such as the new leader in Syria leading
| "rebels" as in SW rebel alliance and not noting we've got a
| $10,000,000 bounty on his head for being a terrorist.
|
| (Ask what you can do for Russia, not what Russia can do for you)
|
| I keep second-guessing my own perceptions, like I'm
| cherrypicking, but the effect seems rampant, where very narrow
| and obviously contestable views are repeated as truisms and
| appear as such across many outlets.
|
| I just saw a documentary called "The Program" which one more in
| and endless series of hype products about UFOs-- this one tries
| to politicize the topic as a huge coverup a la JFK.
|
| But what seems funny to me is term UFO! It's a fascinating term
| in its own right as it is used as a determinative noun based on
| an acronym where the key trait is "unidentified". In the truest
| sense all studies of UFOs must reveal nothing, by definition. And
| they do reveal nothing. As did this documentary. You may have
| never noticed, but nothing is something!
|
| The moon is sort of like this: the biggest nothing in world. Does
| it even matter which is right (vs left vs correct) view?-- I
| can't be bothered to look up. Besides some guys went there and
| all they found was rocks. Who would have guessed?! They brought
| some back and they've been completely forgotten about and
| misplaced out of boredom and irrelevancy.
|
| It was more interesting when the noon could still possibly be
| green cheese. Now it's just orbital mechanics-- a celestial
| pinball machine. A giant fusion reactor pours energy out across a
| gradient and somehow gives rise to everything we are. (Yawn, I'm
| sleepy).
|
| Newton on gravity:
|
| The last clause of your second Position I like very well. Tis
| unconceivable that inanimate brute matter should (without the
| mediation of something else which is not material) operate upon &
| affect other matter without mutual contact; as it must if
| gravitation in the sense of Epicurus be essential & inherent in
| it. And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe
| innate gravity to me. That gravity should be innate inherent &
| essential to matter so that one body may act upon another at a
| distance through a vacuum without the mediation of any thing else
| by & through which their action or force {may} be conveyed from
| one to another is to me so great an absurdity that I beleive no
| man who has in philosophical matters any competent faculty of
| thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an
| agent acting constantly according to certain laws, but whether
| this agent be material or immaterial is a question I have left to
| the consideration of my readers.
| zoombippy wrote:
| A big ass ham sandwich too.
| hi41 wrote:
| This feels like a beautiful work of art! Great job, OP!
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Some of those interactable visualizations on scale and seeing the
| sun/moon/earth rotate at the same time is the best anywhere.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Miles deep in to what seem like a subject we take for granted in
| everyday life.
| zerop wrote:
| Can we give reference of these articles to LLMs and get them to
| write articles like this for educational contents and produce
| similar WebGL graphics code to render images. I mean, just use
| this style and produce educational content using AI. that might
| make the studies more interesting.
| The5thElephant wrote:
| I'm guessing it will get nowhere close to as well considered,
| written, and structured as what Bartosz makes himself.
|
| I don't know how people don't see how poor quality so much AI
| writing is, even when referencing good quality work.
|
| Also making effective visualizations that do a good job of
| illustrating a concept is not just a matter of being able to
| write the code.
| princemo4 wrote:
| wow. can you imagine the amount of work that was put into this
| website?
| 01jonny01 wrote:
| Amazing interactive article. It actually gave me hope in
| humanity, over LLMs. I could feel the love, creativity and effort
| that was put into it.
| f3nter wrote:
| Pretty cool post! I thought I knew the moon, but after your post
| I guess I was wrong haha
| pcunite wrote:
| The solar system is like a mechanical clock, a timepiece.
| omnee wrote:
| I've already had the pleasure of learning from his previous post
| on 'Sound', and this one on the Moon is equally informative and
| beautiful. In the age of slop and pop-ups, it fills me with joy
| that there still exists on the internet such a brilliantly
| crafted blog that informs and educates the curious mind.
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