Real Time Earth

[Ebios]

I do not know how hard this would be to implement nor do I know if there is data available for this but it would be great, I think, if the clouds on the Earth would reflect current satellite information, and possibly a toggle for different information maps like radar, satellite, atlas data, etc. Just a thought. Great program. Thank you.

Eric

[Evangel]

xplanet provides a regularly-updated composite cloud map for download every couple of hours. You would need to resize etc for Celestia. the URL is http://xplanet.sourceforge.net/clouds_2000.jpg

[Tommy]

The same would be neat for sun-spots...

[dab]

can someone tell me how to format earth-clouds.png?
the polar regions seem to be cut off, and does size matter?

for 'real time earth' we would also have to ged rid of the feature
that moves the cloudmap W->E

also, celestia should somehow be convinced to reload the map if it changes.

obviously, using real cloud maps will not work with zapping into the future,
but I think I'll start a collection of xplanet cloudmaps for historically accurate
cloudmaps.

cheers

dab

[dab]

for those interested,
i am starting this collection of cloud snapshots form the xplanet site now.
you can access it here:
http://flaez.ch/clouds/

i am not sure if i will continue this (since it will take
considerable space over time...). maybe i'll cut down to 1 image
per day or downsize the images.

dab