Sightly Star Strolls OR Stargazing From the Living Room

To my regular readers (I know you're out there somewhere!):

I'm starting something new. Rather than have this descend into a travel blog, I'm going to vary things up a little. See, not everything fascinating needs to involve travel. Some things are just awesome in and of themselves.

One of those is the app Star Walk.

Icon totally grabbed from the App Store page.

My father-in-law showed this to me when out on a walk one night. My first response?

Awesome.

Now this isn't a tech blog. So I'm not gonna talk about how cool the interface is, or how it uses the technology or other such things like that.

All right, maybe a little, but not because it's a tech blog.

Perhaps it's the child of the 80s in me, but there's always been something about green on black that makes me think, "Technology."

Not just settings. Technology settings

But green is for normal technology. TRUE technology, now that is RED. Like awesome space-age technology from an 80s Sci-Fi movie.

Or Virtual Boy. Which was technically the 90s, but still seemed 80s.

But beyond that is the augmented reality usage by this app.

Allow me to demonstrate:

While on a walk in the neighborhood with my lovely wife, I took a picture of the moon.

Really! That's the moon! And there's clouds and sky and stuff!

Then I took a walk in the stars... (also with my lovely wife):

Told you the moon was there. Also evidently Neptune and Pluto.

And it doesn't just see through clouds. Walls mean nothing to Star Walk.

Ladies and Gentlemen: An ordinary wall...

Voila!

Let's watch that again, adjusting for location...

And yeah, that is compass marks on the image.

This app has been out for awhile, so I know I'm not the first to geek out about it, but I definitely won't be the last.

I've spent way too long staring at this thing inside and outside to be anything but fascinated.

And you know what? I'm going to embrace my geeking out. Witness the spectrum slider:

X-ray! (Located just below the Hulk spectrum.)

Microwave!

The frikkin' International Space Station!

For those of you who are bored, I will cease boring you. Those of you who aren't have probably long since wandered off with this thing.

Where'd they go? No idea. But I have feeling I know what they'll be looking at and when they'll be looking at it.

Probably watching the Draconid Meteor Shower on Oct. 7th and calling in sick on the 8th.

But the best thing about the app is the feeling of belonging I get while looking at it. Things here on Earth still matter, and are still important, but isn't just about Earth.

Moving this app around, I'm reminded that the stars aren't just overhead. They're under our feet, over to the side, behind you right now, and right in front of you.

It's a reminder that the sun keeps moving after it sets, that the planets keep orbiting, and that it's not us vs. the universe. It's us AND the universe.

It also reminds me that we are totally living in the Future.