My space (page five)

A look at the best ways to explore the cosmos in Sky for Google Earth

Add some cool downloadables

The Google Sky community are a creative bunch. They make loads of layers and animations that you can add in to your picture of the sky. Here are a few.

1. Watch Han Solo escaping in the Millennium Falcon, in an animation by Frank Taylor of the Google Earth Blog. Once you download the file, open it in Google Earth, switch to Sky, and click ‘Sky 3d’ in your Temporary Places. Use the time slider in the top right to start and pause the animation. Try pausing it and using your controls to fly around the ship.
2. When you decide to go outside and have a look at the night sky, knowing where the horizon is will be a big help. Otherwise it’s pretty easy to lose your place in Sky. Fortunately Michael Kosowsky has created a layer that will show your horizon wherever you are. It takes a bit of setup but it makes the night sky a lot more easy to find your way around.
3. OK, this one’s not in Sky mode, but it’s still pretty spacey. There’s a couple of files made by Alberto Conti that will show you all the satellites and space debris floating around the Earth. Get ready to be surprised at how big the swarm of stuff is!

And why not go deeper into more stuff from our space issue? Next page >