Ridiculous Thoughts

I just returned from the O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference last week. I love it when I can go to conferences with so much professional and personal interest for me. I’ll be blogging in the future about how we’re going to use geospatial technology at PatientsLikeMe, but for now, I want to focus on mapping and astronomy—in particular Google Earth and Astronomy.

Now, at first blush it may not be obvious how an Earth mapping tool is useful to amateur astronomers. The key is in the layers. These are files that you can download to layer additional information on top of Google Earth.

There is a new version out, so before you try any of these files go to http://earth.google.com and download the latest version and install it. If you are new to Google Earth (GE, from now on) take some time to explore the GE website, and the application before diving into the layers below. Getting familiar with the application now will pay big dividends later.

While you are surfing around Google, there are two more google websites of interest to us. These are Google Maps of the Moon and Mars. The Mars map, in particular is amazing. I use it in some of my Solar System Ambassador programs. The moon map is nice, be sure to explore the moons secrets at the highest magnification level.

As you download the layers below, save them somewhere on your local PC. You should be able to click on them, or use the File -> Open menu in GE to view them. As you open them, they will overlay onto the map images and appear as “Temporary Places” in the “Places” panel on the left side of the screen. You can check and uncheck these layers to turn them on and off and control the transparency with the slider below.

North American and European light pollution overlays. These layers show the levels of light pollution on their respective continents. Zoom in and check your standard observing sites. You might be surprised. If you are in California you can grab the BLM & NFS layer to see public lands, layer the light pollution map on top and look for good observing sites; like these guys did.

MilkyWeb Astronomy has a GE layer with lots of observatories from around the world. Download the and you will see yellow push pins, called place marks, scattered across the map. The list of observatories is on the left. Double-click on one of those to see where the observatory is located.

Information on impact sites can be found in these layers. Impact sites are marked on the map. Click on them to learn about size, age and a link to a wikipedia article if it exists.

Probably the most complete atlas of space related locations is on the X-Prize page. This layers seems to have all of the observatories and impacts, as well as historical and current landmarks in the exploration of space.

I hope that you enjoy this look from space down as a change of pace. I’m sure that there are more wonderful layers out there. If you know of any add them in comments below!

Steve