heywhatsthat

The Transit of Venus in Google Earth

June 5, 2012

Tonight beginning at 22:09 UTC, Venus will appear as a dark spot in front of the sun for the first time in eight years, and for the last time for more than a century — the next transit of Venus won’t occur until December, 2117.
One of the best sites to help visualize this even is using the viewer on HeyWhatsThat.com. It allows you to adjust the time and your location and get a view of exactly what the sky will be looking like. It’s quite impressive and very helpful.

As with the solar eclipse a few weeks ago, Xavier Jubier has put together some great maps to show what will be going on.
In addition to the standard map showing where the transit will be visible, Xavier also shows us a map (via Jay Anderson) that includes mean cloud cover for June, which helps to show your likelihood of actually having a clear sky with which to view the event.

As with a solar eclipse, do not look directly into the sun (even with sunglasses on) to try to view this event. There are ways to do it safely and we strongly encourage you to take those precautions.

Some great tools for information about the solar eclipse

May 19, 2012

Over the next few weeks, the earth will be seeing a series of unique celestial events. Tomorrow many of us we will be able to see a a solar eclipse, June 4 will feature a lunar eclipse, and June 6 is the Transit of Venus. As you might expect, there are great Google Earth tools to help you make the most of all three events.
For the solar eclipse, the eclipse viewer from HeyWhatsThat.com is a great way to see where the best locations for the viewing the eclipse are located.

You can use the dropdown box in the lower right corner of the site to view other simulations, both past and future. You can learn more about the features available on their site by reading this text file.
Another great resource for this eclipse is Xavier Jubier’s map.

In addition to this eclipse, he has an extensive collection of data from other eclipses from 1961 through 2039 available to view.
Tomorrow’s eclipse should be visible to many of our readers, weather permitting. Let us know if you’re able to see it!

Simulating the upcoming lunar eclipse

December 20, 2010

Early tomorrow morning, December 21, there will be a total lunar eclipse. It will be completely visible to those in North America (assuming clear skies, of course) and people in Europe will be able to see the beginning of it.
For the solar eclipse this past summer, we showed you the great tool that was created by Michael at HeyWhatsThat.com.
He’s back again with a similar tool to determine the best time to view the lunar eclipse from your location. Check out the tool here to see when you should step outside to view the eclipse.

If you’re not in a location that can view the eclipse, or if cloud cover obscures your view, NASA has a live feed that you can tune into to see the eclipse as it happens. UPDATE: Or watch it live in Google Earth using Slooh.
(via GoogleMapsMania)

Watch this weekend’s solar eclipse in Google Earth

July 9, 2010

A few weeks ago, on June 26, there was a partial lunar eclipse for part of the world to see. This weekend, it gets even better with a full solar eclipse in the South Pacific on Sunday.
Michael at HeyWhatsThat.com has built a very impressive eclipse simulator using the Google Earth Plug-in. You can choose the eclipse that you want to view (like the upcoming “2010 July 11 Total Solar Eclipse”), then choose a place on the globe and a time to see what your view will look like.

Here is Michael’s his brief description of how it works:

I use two instances of the Google Earth plug-in, one showing the Earth and the other the sky. Set your location by clicking on the Earth, set the time by clicking on the green timeline, and start an animation by clicking on the timeline’s arrow. Use the dropdown menu on the bottom right to view other eclipses. (Note that the timeline shows your computer’s local time, not the time at the chosen viewer location.)

Here is a video of the simulator in action:

If you want to try it for yourself, just head over to his site

and explore. It’s a very impressive simulation, and is a great use of the Google Earth Plug-in.

View Details on July 22 Total Solar Eclipse in Google Earth

July 13, 2009

HeyWhatsThat is a site which has many tools for viewing things from your position on the Earth including things like nearby mountain peaks, or night sky objects, or even solar eclipses. On July 22nd, a total eclipse of the sun will occur in the asia pacific region. The path of totality crosses some highly populated areas in China – like Shanghai. The author of HeyWhatsThat, Michael Kosowsky, wrote to let me know of several tools he has which can help people visualize the event. But, the one that’s most cool is the simulation of the event you can watch in the Google Earth plugin. Check out the time animation simulation of the solar eclipse here . Here’s a screenshot:

Solar Eclipse Simulation in Google Earth

HeyWhatsThat has also provided a map to view the path of the solar eclipse which will show you whether you can see the eclipse. A way to see the sky view of the event (from your location) with Google Maps using the Cosmic Visibility site. And, you can use his planisphere mode to see the eclipse which uses the Sky mode of Google Earth.
You can also use this excellent eclipse calculator site by Xavier Jubier to view more details on the solar eclipse in Google Earth

GE File. You must have Google Earth installed.

. In addition to showing the July 22nd path of totality and partial eclipse, you can move your view to any location and, after a brief pause, get a placemark which will show you how long the eclipse will be available for that location (and other details). Xavier also has a version for Google Maps.