It's full of.... well, you know.

November 14, 2012 11:31 AM

100,000 Stars [SLInteractive3DVisualization] (Seems to run best on Chrome or Safari and a decent graphics card)
posted by gwint (18 comments total)

this is totally amazing. Thanks for posting!
posted by xbonesgt at 11:45 AM on November 14, 2012

This, from the about page, is adorable:

Warning: Scientific accuracy is not guaranteed. Please do not use this visualization for interstellar navigation.

posted by Kattullus at 11:46 AM on November 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

One more reason to be thankful for the freewheeling mousewheel option on my Logitech G500. Wheee!
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 11:49 AM on November 14, 2012

If you have a really fast machine, Firefox is okay on this page, too, although it feels like it's maybe 8 or 10 frames a second in spots.
posted by Malor at 11:53 AM on November 14, 2012

This is fantastic and I can't wait to get home and load it on my home PC. (My work laptop is doing surprisingly well all things considered)
posted by Twain Device at 11:57 AM on November 14, 2012

Whoa...
posted by WinnipegDragon at 12:01 PM on November 14, 2012

It's WebGL. The page includes Javascript libraries three.js, jQuery, and Underscore.
posted by Nelson at 12:03 PM on November 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is a Google Chrome Experiment: http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

The link above has other cool visualizations
posted by mulligan at 12:06 PM on November 14, 2012

Space is big and terrifying and genuinely awesome. I really felt temporarily unmoored while I watched the "tour."
posted by uncleozzy at 12:08 PM on November 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is so cool. 10 year old me would like to thank you.
posted by maxwelton at 12:24 PM on November 14, 2012

I shall alert Nyrath for inclusion on his 3D starmaps page.
posted by jiawen at 12:25 PM on November 14, 2012

Those who enjoy this but would like a free-roving version might like Celestia (previously).

Favourite Celestia moment: parking my point of view two metres above the surface of Ganymede (zoomed in so close to the model that one single tapioca-coloured pixel of the rendering extended to the horizon) and aiming my view at the sun to watch a sunset. I wondered why the tapioca ground was getting ever paler, until I spun my view 180 degrees and saw a massive Jupiter rising behind me. Neat.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:29 PM on November 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

This is really, really fantastic, and the music is perfect too.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:31 PM on November 14, 2012

I've been trying to find the pleides. I've got my constellation charts out and I'm trying to find enough stars that are parts of known constellations that I can surmise the direction to spin the thing to find them.

This is the most fun I've had in a long time.
posted by brenton at 1:39 PM on November 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Thing is your constellations are 2d projection of the relative magnitude not all stars seen to be in a constellation are in proximity to each other. Since the star ap cannot show you the stars from the perspective of earth orbit the Pleiades will be all but unrecognizable. Only 100 or so of the closest stars are named. The star cluster M45 is some 475 light years away from earth looking at that scale on a small screen would lose them in the noise.
posted by pdxpogo at 1:59 PM on November 14, 2012

pdxpogo: If you line up two known stars and put the sun directly in the middle of them (so that you're looking past Sol to the two stars) then you can get a decent idea of where to look for other nearby stars. Using this method I was able to line up Castor and Capella to find Betelgeuse, and then Betelgeuse and Aldebaran which should point roughly to the Pleiades. Haven't found them yet, even though I can see other stars that are in the 400ly range (e.g. Betelgeuse which is even farther).

Following the line of Betelgeuse and Aldebaran did lead me to Alpha Arietis though, so I know that the Pleiades should be roughly mid-way between Aldebaran and Alpha Arietis, and a little up. No luck so far though.
posted by brenton at 2:21 PM on November 14, 2012

That one is my favorite!

No, THAT one is my favorite!
posted by poe at 5:51 PM on November 14, 2012

Nyrath has been alerted (though I was already aware of the website), and it will be included in my website in due time. Thanks jiawen!
posted by Nyrath at 6:18 PM on November 14, 2012