A head mounted display that superimposes detailed astronomical images on the sky. It would store astronomical images and their movements, so that for instance, if you looked at jupiter, it would show the stormy red disk of jupiter with its satellites at the correct positions. Ideally, it would also have knowledge of artificial satellites, so that you could see the space station as it orbited or even tiny GPS satellites for instance, which would be hard to resolve in any telescope.

Optionally, it could ignore the earth, so that you could look around and down and see the entire celestial sphere. You could also change spectrum to see the sky in infrared or other bands. The time could also be changed, so that you could see a supernova brightening a thousand years ago, or see a rocket launch, like the Apollo launch or even Goddard's rocket experiments. Fictional craft could be added, so you could see O'Neill colonies at L5 or the 80 million pound thrust Sea Dragon lifting off.
-- doomsayer, Nov 24 2000

Retinal Scanning Display http://www.mvis.com...rk/hiworkbigpic.htm
Functional components image. [doomsayer, Nov 24 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]

XEphem http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/xephem/
Free astronomy software for unix. [doomsayer, Nov 24 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]

How Augmented Reality Will Work http://www.howstuff...gmented-reality.htm
Overlaying information on the real world. [doomsayer, Nov 24 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]

eh?
-- djhotsauce, Nov 25 2000


Anything specific you're having trouble with, dj?
-- jutta, Nov 25 2000


This isn't quite as elaborate as what you're proposing (so not really baked) but it's the beginnings of it... Radio Shack has a hand-held device that, based on your lat/long and compass direction shows you the constellations that appear in the sky above you so you can find the stars. Kinda cool.
-- ElectraSteph, Nov 28 2000


Given such a display, why bother going outside? Why limit yourself to astral images? Might as well go for whole hog VR.
-- egnor, Nov 29 2000


mmmmm.... fairy cake.....
-- imagooAJ, Dec 01 2000


erm...hate to nitpick, but the only problem with the time-change stuff is that the stars would no longer be where you left them (precession et c.) If it doesn't matter that you're not getting information abou the stars that were actually there but instead the stars that are there now and were once elswhere....well, OK...(if you can follow that you're reading too closely)...but the point is, the point is, back there somewhere....
-- Urania, Dec 23 2000


I would like it to superimpose the pictures on the constellations so that you could see how on earth they got their names. Orion is nice and obvious, but Ursa Major still looks like a frying pan to me and Cygnus looks nothing like a swan.
-- wagster, May 09 2007



random, halfbakery