Author | Lightnews

Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 11d

Note: WBOIT stands for Weighted Blended Order Independent Transparency.

Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 11d

Next steps are adding more variety to galaxy morphologies (ellipticals, bars, etc.), and experimenting with WBOIT for true dust occlusion. (3/3)

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 11d

The performance is very good. The generation is seamless, but compute shaders are needed (sadly, no macOS). Stars are rendered to a full-res buffer, while the rest of the channels are rendered to a half-res buffer. (2/3)

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 11d

I've been playing around with compute shaders to generate procedural galaxies in #GaiaSky on the fly. Still needs work, but it looks promising for populating distant galaxies. In the video, I spawned a galaxy next to the milky way, trying to mimic its structure with a few simple parameters. (1/3)

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 19d

We've been working on a new galaxy model for Gaia Sky. It is a compromise between 'looking good' and 'rendering fast'.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Oct 3

so their usefulness is limited as they are now. They need some work...

In any case, I'll have a look at EVE Online and see if I can draw some inspiration. Thanks for the suggestion!

Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Oct 3

are virtually infinite. Do you know @galaxymap.bsky.social? He is very much interested in this type of galactic cartography, and produces maps of large structures in the Galaxy which are a wonder. We have included some of his iso-density meshes in Gaia Sky. However, the meshes are not annotated,

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Oct 3

Thanks for the nice words! Very much appreciated!

EVE Online rings a bell, but I've never seen or played it. In any case, any galaxy-wide encompassing structures in Gaia Sky would depend very much on the star/nebulae/cluster/etc. catalogs and datasets loaded at a certain time, and the combinations

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Oct 1

#GaiaSky 3.7.0 is out! If you are on macOS Tahoe, you need to update, as this fixes a bug that prevents the app from starting.

But there is much more to this release! Many new features and QoL improvements: gaiasky.space/news/2025/ga...

Gaia Sky | Gaia Sky 3.7.0

gaiasky.space

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Reposted by Gaia Sky

Plateau Astro @plateauastro.bsky.social · Sep 25

There's only ~30 satellites needed to make GPS work around the world. I wanted to show this to students, and I'm super pumped how this turned out!

Working with @gaiasky.bsky.social, we grab the orbital data of each satellite and show them circling around Earth

They look like electrons in an atom

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Sep 25

We have just published the GPS Satellite Network dataset for #GaiaSky, put together by @plateauastro.bsky.social. You can get it right now from the dataset manager.

The GPS satellite network dataset in Gaia Sky

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Sep 20

Can you do parallel-view 3D? 👁️👁️

youtu.be/r1S46acZ64w

Solar System and Galaxy tour in Parallel-View 3D

YouTube video by Gaia Sky

youtu.be

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Sep 19

I've been meaning to add these mappings for a while now... I always missed the vertical movement too when using a gamepad!

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Sep 19

Can you do cross-eye? 👁️❌👁️
youtu.be/oLeKjm2xkAM

Solar System and Galaxy tour in Cross-Eye 3D

YouTube video by Gaia Sky

youtu.be

Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 28

📢📢📢 Exactly a week after the release of 3.6.10, we release #GaiaSky 3.6.11. This is a small-ish release that contains a few new API calls and some important bug fixes.

gaiasky.space/downloads/re...

Gaia Sky | Release 3.6.11.e03d32c84

gaiasky.space

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 21

📢📢📢 #GaiaSky 3.6.10 is now available for download!
This release brings a handful of minor improvements, and a lot of bug fixes. Additionally, it enables a new virtual texture dataset based on Sentinel-2 data.

🔗 Learn more: gaiasky.space/news/2025/ga...

A view of Barcelona using the new Gaia Sky dataset based on Sentinel-2 data.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 18

We'll (probably) release #GaiaSky 3.6.10 next Monday 21st.

a man with long white hair and a beard holds a white sword

ALT: a man with long white hair and a beard holds a white sword

media.tenor.com

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 11

Kathmandu, Vienna, Bratislava, Mumbai, Cairo, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Cape Canaveral, and Andorra la Vella.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 11

The high resolution areas are: Heidelberg, Barcelona, Montreal, New York, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Edinburgh, London, Madrid, Prague, Lisbon, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Beijing, Tokyo, Ankara, Budapest, Amsterdam, Cape Town, [follows 👇]

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 11

More info: Contains the full Earth down to level 6 (~240 m/px), and then many urban areas down to levels 10 and 11 (~20 and 10 m/px).

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 11

I've been working with @plateauastro.bsky.social on a new virtual texture for #GaiaSky which features many urban areas down to a resolution of 10-20 m/px. It is based on Sentinel-2 data and the NASA blue marble imagery. Check out the video 🎞️👇

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 3

In the next version, Gaia Sky will pull localized object information from the @wikipedia.org API whenever available. This shortcoming in the internationalization of the app has been mended.

See video below, where the object summary depends on the current locale 👇

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 3

📢📢📢 #GaiaSky 3.6.9-2 patch release is out!
This patch release contains a fix for the macOS package, which did not work in some cases, and some other fixes and tweaks.

gaiasky.space/news/2025/ga...

Gaia Sky | Gaia Sky 3.6.9

gaiasky.space

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 2

📢📢📢 #GaiaSky 3.6.9 is out! This version brings some exciting new features and lots of bug fixes.
More info: gaiasky.space/news/2025/ga...

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · Jul 1

Everything is ready for the #GaiaSky 3.6.9 release...

https://media3.giphy.com/media/QBd2kLB5qDmysEXre9/200.gif

media3.giphy.com

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