I have already written in the past about a few software and websites that allow for exploring the night sky and stars nearby. Today I’m going to focus on a specific celestial object, the closest to us: our Moon. As it happens, there is a lot now available for free to give users a satisfactory lunar experience (in addition to pure cartography. See this).
The simplest one is certainly Google Moon, one of the features that can be activated from Google Earth. But there’s more than that, and more sophisticated.
One is certainly 3D Moon. “The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team recently posted this anaglyph of a Wide Angle Camera (WAC) mosaic of the lunar nearside taken at low-Sun conditions.” And the results are quite amazing (but remember to use 3D glasses).
Another good one is 3D Moon Map, which allow a view of the lunar landscape with regions, mountains, canyons, craters -available here.
And if you want a virtual tour of the Moon, try this from NASA Goddard. It is absolutely mindblowing:
Damn science is cool. I am off to look at moon maps. Love me some maps. Arrrr!
x The Captain
What a fabulous resource, Steph – thank you so much for featuring it:)
Thanks, Sara… useful if you want to write something set in there 😉
That’s what I thought!
PS That video gave me goosebumps. Out of the fictional sci-fi books that take place on the moon are there any that come to mind as having done good research about known cartography of the moon? And any ones that seemed horrible?
x The Captain
And since tonight we will be able to observe the Moon in its close approach to Earth, this post comes even more welcome! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Yes, a fantastic, super-close Snow Moon! We’re blessed, aren’t we?