Viewing the Earth
You can view either a map of the Earth
showing the day and night regions at this moment, or view the Earth from the
Sun, the
Moon, the
night
side of the Earth, above any location on the planet specified by latitude, longitude and
altitude, from a satellite in Earth orbit,
or above various cities around
the globe.
Images can be generated based on a full-colour image
of the Earth by day and night, a topographical
map of the Earth, up-to-date weather
satellite imagery, or a composite
image of cloud cover superimposed on a map of the Earth, or a colour
composite which shows clouds, land and sea temperatures, and ice. Expert mode allows you
additional control over the generation of the image. You can compose a custom request with frequently-used
parameters and save it as a hotlist or bookmark item in your browser. Please
consult the Details
for additional information and answers to frequently-asked questions.
Viewing the Moon
In addition to the Earth, you can also view the Moon from the Earth,
Sun,
night
side, above named formations
on the lunar surface. or as a map
showing day and night. A related document compares the appearance of the
Moon at perigee
and apogee, including an interactive Perigee and Apogee Calculator.
Browser Requirements
To use the Earth and Moon Viewer, you need a graphical Web browser with forms
support and the ability to display GIF and JPEG images. In order to pan around
the map or globe by clicking within the image, your browser must support "Client-Side
Image Maps"--if you don't know what this means, don't worry: if your browser
doesn't support the feature, you'll see a page which explains how to proceed.
The Earth and Moon Viewer would have been enormously more difficult to implement
without the help of the software and imagery mentioned in the credits.
Related Software on this Site
Windows users can create images like this in real time, on their own machines,
as well as view the sky, stars at the horizon, the solar system, orbits of
asteroids and comets, and more with Home Planet, my
public domain Earth/Space/Sky simulator available for your FTPing pleasure. Other public domain
astronomy and space software available from the same site includes:
- On the Web:
- Eclipse 2001 -- In Darkness:
Africa.
- Moon at
Perigee and Apogee.
- Solar System Live:
interactive orrery.
- Switzerland
from Space.
- Terranova:
a new terraformed planet every day.
- Your Sky makes custom
star maps for any location on Earth at any date and time.
- For Windows:
- Home Planet,
Earth screen saver, Sky
screen saver, Moontool,
Craters screen saver, and an Excel
catalogue of the
Palomar Observatory Sky Survey.
- For Unix (X/OpenWindows):
- Moontool,
and Xsunclock.
All of these packages and more can be located from my home page.
by John Walker
