My Google Map Blog

Frank Taylor here, and I’m writing today to share my happiness of a feature in the new Google Earth 7.1 released on Monday. It contains a new feature I first suggested to Google many years ago (around 2006). To Google’s credit, they finally implemented a more realistic, pretty version of the night sky which not only includes brighter looking stars, but also a nice backdrop of the Milky Way. The stars’ positions, and their position in the sky appear to be correct in the new sky. Here’s what it looks like from deep space with the “Sun” option turned on to darken the appearance of the Earth:

The new night sky also appears from the ground if you turn on the “Sun” option (“View->Sun”) and use the time slider to make it night. This assumes you have the atmosphere turned on (more on a new feature for the atmosphere in this post). Here’s a view from St. Louis just after sunset:

Way to go Google! It’s really great to see a better rendition of the starry skies!

Google did do a really cool night sky for GE in a different way starting in 2007 – a feature which is still supported in 7.1 by selecting the “Planet” icon and choosing “Sky”.

The post New Starry Sky in Google Earth 7.1 appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Google has pushed out some significant updates to their Street View imagery today, launching in Hungary and Lesotho and greatly expanding their imagery in Poland and Romania (along with other parts of the world, including France, Italy, Russia, Singapore and Thailand).  Thanks to GEB reader ‘Munden’ for being the first to let us know about this update.

Not only have they added all of this imagery, but they’ve added quite a few new places using their trike system, such as Sha Tin Che Kung Temple in Hong Kong.

As always, remember that this imagery can be viewed in Google Maps but can also be viewed directly in Google Earth.  Here’s how that works:

You can read more about this update in this post on the Google Lat Long Blog.

The post Google launches Street View in Hungary and Lesotho; expands in Poland and Romania appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

In the wake of the tragic bombing and heroic capture of the suspects in Boston last week, a variety of tools have popped up to show where all of the events took place.

Google Maps Mania is a great place to start for resources like this, as they have a nice post that highlights some of the better maps that have been used over the past week.

Another good resource is this post on MyReadingMapped, which includes a very comprehensive map of all of the events.  You can view their entire list of locations on Google Maps, or download this KML file to see them all in Google Earth, as shown below.

The pursuit ended in the quiet city of Watertown, where the suspect was found hiding in a boat.  This simple file on Google Earth Hacks will take you directly to location of the boat.  As a nice touch, it also automatically adjusts your historical imagery slider to a time when the boat was more clearly visible.

If you have found any other great maps related to the events in Boston last week, please leave a comment and share them with us.

The post The Boston Marathon Manhunt in Google Earth appeared first on Google Earth Blog.