Google Sky Now Available Through Your Browser

Ars Technica brings word that Google Sky, formerly only available as an extension of the Google Earth software, is now accessible through your web browser. The interface of Google Sky is quite similar to that of Google Maps, complete with search and alternate views by spectrum. The story also mentions (and more importantly, links) ten of the more interesting sights. We discussed Google Sky's initial release last year. Quoting: "Visible light only shows us a small picture of the entire universe; non-visible spectra such as ultraviolet (UV), infrared and X-ray hold a whole other world of information. Here is where Google Sky becomes very cool. There are three more sections that highlight fantastic images from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the GALEX Evolution Explorer (UV), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (IR). What makes these very cool is that under each selected body there is a slider that will change the displayed image back and forth between the visible and invisible spectrum."

Comments

Re:intergalactic law

[nospam007]

What would be the repercussions if, for example viewing certain systems in the x-ray wavelength was forbidden by some wild alien race? Would they go after the entire earth, the individual people who looked, or what? Ideas?

The Intergalactic RIAA has the copyright of all the visible and invisible wavelengths outside the milky way.
Viewing that without any license is piracy.

Let's put a flag on the moon.

[DutchMasterKiller]

We probably won't be able to zoom in on Tranquility Base, where the Eagle hasn't landed *bleep*

Spitzer Space Telescope (IR)?

[xbytor]

Come on, now! Somebody come up with a pithy post vis a vis Eliot, the telescope, and his lady friends. It's another 36+ hours until Jon Stewart is on the air.

Re:Spitzer Space Telescope (IR)?

[Hatta]

Sure, ok. Viewing data from the Spitzer space telescope is going to cost you $5500 an hour.

Google Maps Off the Map

[Doc Ruby]

Anyone know why my Google Maps pages suddenly turned blank sometime last fall, when I apt-get upgraded a whole bunch of apps in Ubuntu (sometime after the release of 7.10)? I don't know which upgraded app caused it, because there was a week or two with a lot of upgrades on different days, after which maps.google.com stopped working, and I can't roll each back just to get back the Google maps - there's too many, and I'm too busy. I've searched the Web several times over the past 3-4 months, but no sign of anyone else having the problem.

I hit any maps.google.com page, any location or zoom, any of the different search/businesses/directions functions, and all I get is a page with the Search Results / Directions left column totally blank (under the two tabs). And the main map panel totally blank, light grey (the same color as this Slashdot submit form background), but with its upper right corner holding a small rectangle saying "Terrain" above a small "+" shape of blank white boxes where the NSEW/. scrolling controls were, and under that the zoom slider also just a blank white square above a blank white rectangle streching down to a blank white square, with a slider "knob" visible. But the slider doesn't slide, the clicking those controls doesn't do anything (though my cursor turns into a "clickable" hand icon over them). Over the main map my cursor stays an arrow, and clicking/dragging has no effect.

My Java/Javascript settings are all the same as before, allowing them. I've tried removing and installing Java and Flash, upgrading them, but no improvement. The pan/zoom controls actually went blank first, sometime in the late Summer (between 7.04 and 7.10), but it was no big deal, though I tried to search for others with the problem (and a solution) to no avail.

Any ideas? It all just looks like the sky on an heavy overcast day, so I guess I've had a limited "Google Sky" on my browser for almost half a year now, and I want to go back to the old Earth view instead :).

Re:Google Maps Off the Map

[Jugalator]

So what component in Ubuntu is at fault then, so he can roll it back?

Somehow I think you're better at giving a hand waving reply here than knowing what you're talking about in this case.

Re:Google Maps Off the Map

[IamTheRealMike]

Hey Doc. I work on Maps and sometimes debug weird customer-reported problems like this.

Here's The Real Mikes three step guide to diagnosing and fixing Google Maps problems:

1. Create a new browser profile, using "firefox -ProfileManager". This effectively clears your cache, cookies, extensions and other settings that can interfere with maps. Does it work? If so, go back to your main profile and (in this order): clear your cache, delete your google.com cookies, revert any changed settings (especially network settings) in about:config, and finally start disabling extensions and then plugins (in particular, RealPlayer if you have it). If you have any web accelerator type mods to your Firefox, revert them too.
2. If that doesn't work, the next step is to look at your home router. Disable any firewall it may have, in particular, watch out for the "max pending connections" or "synflood protection" settings. Make sure they're either off or set really high. You may need to reset your router after doing these things.
3. Finally, try loading a satellite tile URL directly in your browser: http://kh0.google.com/kh?n=404&v=25&hl=en&t=trtqttrrttqts - do you see a tile? If you get a connection timeout, but regular google.com works, see step 2 above. If you see an error page talking about viruses, make sure you're only using Google Maps/Earth to view imagery and not any other app.

To be honest, from your description it sounds like the first step will yield the most fruit - I include the other two for completeness (if people see Maps load just fine but you don't see the roadmap or satellite images themselves, those two steps can help). Probably your cache has corrupted somehow, either that or some of the files Maps needs aren't loading. If you can't figure it out and know how, I'd suggest watching what happens with the Live HTTP Headers extension.

Re:Google Maps Off the Map

[johannesg]

You would think Google might have some sort of site where you could find these solutions. Some sort of searching system would be ideal.

Re:Google Maps Off the Map

[Doc Ruby]

Thanks, I figured it out, and fixed it :).

It was a config:

general.useragent.extra.firefox.InternetExplorerSignature
user set
string
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)

I deleted the value and (right-clicked to) reset it, restarted Firefox, and all was well :).

Deleting cache and cookies didn't change anything. I used (firefox -ProfileManager) to create a test profile, which worked OK with maps.google.com . So I progressively copied directories files from my failing profile to replace their counterpart in the working profile. I deduced that prefs.js was causing the failure. So I recreated a new working test profile, copied my failing prefs.js into it, progressively deleted preference lines from the failing prefs.js until I found that it was that pref. Then I retested to see that that pref was the only difference, and deleted it using the about:prefs page GUI in my failing profile. Presto!

Thanks for helping. I'm back on the map :).

Wouldn't Google Sky be more useful if...

[RobinH]

Wouldn't Google Sky be more useful if you could enter a lat/long, and it could give you a picture of the sky from that location at a given time, related to NSEW, etc.? Then you could actually see that the bright object in the SE sky in the morning really is Venus, etc.

The problem with it currently is that there's no frame of reference. On Google Earth, you generally look at everything from some frame of reference, like you start with your house or the Eiffel Tower or Hoover Dam and start looking around from there.

Re:Wouldn't Google Sky be more useful if...

[glwtta]

Then you could actually see that the bright object in the SE sky in the morning really is Venus, etc.

There's already plenty of software to do that: http://www.stellarium.org/

Re:Wouldn't Google Sky be more useful if...

[Chris Brewer]

For a browser-based version: http://www.heavens-above.com/

Do not forget the hyphen - I tried going there by trying to remember the URL, and ended up somewhere that is NSFW

A little buggy

[isorox]

It seems a little buggy. Having found Mars, and found Venus, I decided to do what I do on google maps, just for a laugh. I guess I hoped for a "3 degrees up, 7 minutes right" or whatever, but instead I got some interesting results.


- 33 Results for venus to mars -
Head north on Blue Shore Dr toward Lakeside Dr
Blue Shore Dr turns left and becomes Lakeside Dr
Lakeside Dr turns right and becomes Shaded Trail
Turn right at Highway 109
Turn left at Highway 207 ....

infrared

[TheSHAD0W]

The wide angle infrared view is especially striking. I'm assuming the black slashes indicate missing imagery and not alien activity.

Re:The Sky's the Limit

[Constantine XVI]

http://google.com/mars

it is broken

[operon]

Search: "Extraterrestrial life" OR E.T. OR Borg OR "Death Star" "No results"

Re:intergalactic law

[amRadioHed]

Everyone knows that ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. Just you wait, I guarantee the first signal SETI discovers will be a summons.