Sky Map
Augmented reality is an extremely interesting usage of modern technology, and is continuously evolving day by day. We can explore augmented reality products through VR goggles, video games, TV shows and other electronic devices. Today I will be examining using phone applications to learn about our universe, or more specifically, the galaxy we live in.
Sky Map is an intuitive and useful app for discovering the building blocks of our night sky. It is a free app from the google play store that you simply download and open, to which it then uses your GPS data to look directly at stars, planets, and galaxies, displaying beyond what we can discern with our naked eyes. The app is efficient, well designed, and friendly to its user regardless of your knowledge and experience with AR/VR technology. One of the most interesting aspects of this app is that you can actually change the date and time at which you are viewing, where the app then places the stars where they would have historically been at that time.
Despite all these attributes, Sky Map is actually a smaller fish in a big pond regarding astronomy augmented reality, and is best suited for children, and adults who would rather just find the stars, planets, and constellations. It’s a great source of information for a beginner astronomer, but sadly does not offer further information for a budding scientist. I would be hesitant to call it “low quality” however as it does exactly what it wants to do; there are better alternatives online for further research and scientific usage. Google Sky (also developed by Google) and SKY-MAP.ORG are great alternatives for actual research, as they contain more data, descriptions, and options, but are not as user or child friendly as Sky Map.
Ultimately, I believe augmented reality projects such as Sky Map are vital to instructing and guiding the future of scientific exploration. Astronomers are being created every time these programs are being used, and AR applications are excellent ways to give general scientific knowledge to the public. These projects can also be used for historical research purposes. Many ancient religious stories include mentions of the stars, and what was happening in the night sky. Time dependent phenomena such as halley’s comet are also subject to exploration and further inspection. By using historical descriptions and paintings of the sky we can use predictions of the star, sun and moon placements to determine when events had truly happened, and what ancient people were actually seeing. It could explain events such as biblical tales of bright angels, UFO sightings in the last few centuries, and many other “unexplainable” aerial happenings.
Augmented reality has become extremely simple to use and to learn from. Anyone can download Sky Map and begin their astronomical journey at the click of a button. It is enjoyable, interesting, and even useful for historical and scientific purposes. In the future space agencies such as NASA or the CSA could utilize augmented and virtual reality for training astronauts, or for exploring distant galaxies using high quality photos taken by probes.