Week 4

AR Technology and the Stars

Thanks to an incredible teacher I had in the fourth grade, he sparked a desire within me to keep learning. In fact, Mr. O'Malley has since received an honor from former President Barack Obama recognizing his talents in science education. I remember my trips to the library with my grandmother back then. I would always go to the aisle with all of the youth non-fiction titles, and I would read about astronomy. If PBS's Nova ScienceNow was on, I'd be glued to the TV.

That's why, a few years ago, I didn't mind spending $3 on an iOS app called StarWalk. It uses my phone's gyroscope to orient itself, and it shows the different names of stars and constellations currently visible in the sky. I can also set up notifications to remind me to view different celestial events, or to spot a satellite in the sky. I used to go online and look up these kinds of events and hope I would remember to go outside and look. Now, I just pull the information from this one app. I absolutely love that it's possible to house this kind of technology on my phone.

StarWalk also has AR capability. It can find the stars in the sky, and map its built in map to what my phone's camera sees. It makes StarWalk that much more accurate, and it makes it much easier to find and identify the stars that I'm looking at. You can also search up objects of interest and have the app point you towards its location with arrows. What if I'm looking for Saturn?

Notice how the stars and the constellation Sagittarius are mapped over the image of my neighborhood.

How about the moon?

Unfortunately, the moon was already below the horizon.

If StarWalk had it's own application on a set of AR glasses, I think it would make the experience even better. StarWalk's ability to find stars in the sky and project its star map onto my real world works very well, but it would be even more accurate if I'm actually looking at both at the same time! I would no longer need to reference my phone for the names and locations of stars, because I'm already looking at them!

If I had a pair of AR glasses with this application on them, I would like for them to let me know if there's a visible satellite overhead, or if there will be one in the next few minutes. StarWalk has notifications you can turn on to remind you when the ISS will be visible in the sky. It would incredible for a pair of AR glasses to pinpoint exactly where in the sky I should look for the ISS.

Another feature I think would be cool see is a star trail mode, where the AR glasses show me how far all of the visible stars, planets, and satellites have moved since starting the application.

Regardless, whenever it is that I finally own a decent pair of AR capable glasses, you can bet that an astronomy application is the first thing I'm downloading.

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