Posted by: Tom O'Reilly May 6 2010, 05:13 AM
I've just released a free application called "Solaris" for Android phones. Solaris enables 3D "live" interactive astronomy of Earth's aurora, extreme ultraviolet solar flares and sun spots - downloaded from space and retrieved to your phone. Uses NASA STEREO and NOAA polar orbiter spacecraft data. Phone vibrates when geomagnetic storm level increases.
Android 1.6+ required. You can freely download Solaris from the Android Market.
Posted by: djxatlanta May 7 2010, 04:11 PM
Good job -- love it! A pinch-to-zoom feature for both the Earth and Sun would be a great addition for version 2.
Posted by: algorimancer May 7 2010, 06:53 PM
Very nifty -- one more cool thing to show-off to my friends with iPhones
Posted by: Tom O'Reilly May 23 2010, 04:32 AM
QUOTE (algorimancer @ May 7 2010, 10:53 AM)
Very nifty -- one more cool thing to show-off to my friends with iPhones
QUOTE (djxatlanta @ May 7 2010, 09:11 AM)
Good job -- love it! A pinch-to-zoom feature for both the Earth and Sun would be a great addition for version 2.
Thanks very much for your feedback guys. Pinch-zoom is a recent addition to Android, and there are still a lot of phones out there that do not support it - but that is changing, and I hope to implement it soon. I'd also like the app to automatically annotate the STEREO images with the location of solar flares, filaments, sun spots, etc. Can anyone recommend a good website with feature annotations, including feature coordinates? This site looks promising:
http://sdowww.lmsal.com/suntoday.html?suntoday_date=2010-05-22 I've also had a few requests to integrate SDO data into the app somehow.
In the meantime I've just released Solaris v 1.8 - new features include a real-time sunlight/clouds aurora basemap, and vibrational notification when the aurora may be overhead at your location (based on power-flux at your GPS location).
Posted by: Dominik May 23 2010, 06:54 PM
QUOTE (Tom O'Reilly @ May 23 2010, 06:32 AM)
... and vibrational notification when the aurora may be overhead at your location (based on power-flux at your GPS location).
Now that's a cool feature! Can't wait to test your little app on my next trip to Norway ;-).
Posted by: Tom O'Reilly May 23 2010, 07:23 PM
QUOTE (Dominik @ May 23 2010, 10:54 AM)
Now that's a cool feature! Can't wait to test your little app on my next trip to Norway ;-).
Alas, that feature to remain forever silent here in central California!