New Starry Sky in Google Earth 7.1
by Frank Taylor on Apr.24, 2013, under 3D Models, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, California, Denmark, England, Germany, Google Earth News, Google Earth Tips, Google Sky, Google maps, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Natural Landmarks, Netherlands, Sightseeing, Street Views, USA
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”.
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