Links for Space Centre Displays
Many people ask us how we get the live data feeds and other screen-based displays we have at the Space Centre, and whether these feeds are available to the public. The answer is that we have a variety of systems, some of which are indeed available on public websites. Unfortunately most of our screen-based displays are not publicly accessible but we're happy to share those that are. If you want to see the others you'll need to visit us :)
NOTE: Our live feed system is moving to a new website at UniverseMonitor.com
International Space Station
One of our most popular displays shows various information about the International Space Station (ISS).
ISS Current Position - Where the ISS above the Earth right now. Our two screens are custom designed for the Space Centre but this link shows a similar map to the ones we use.
ISS Live Video #1 - This is the newer, high-definition experimental video feed from cameras outside the ISS. It alternates between three fixed camera views: One forward-facing, one facing down towards Earth and one rear-facing.
ISS Live Video #2 - This is the older, lower-resolution feed. Although the quality isn't as good it can be more interesting as the camera sometimes pans and tilts to provide many different views. Occasionally this feed switches to cameras inside the ISS.
Earth Monitors
We have three screens set up to monitor Earth's air currents, ocean currents and ocean temperature. These screens all use the excellent data visualization website earth.nullschool.net.
Aurora Forecasts
We draw our forecast for the Northern & Southern lights from the USA's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAD).
Space Junk
To illustrate what a mess it is up there, we use stuffin.space.
Night Sky Viewer
Stellarium is a free planetarium app that shows you what's in the sky. You can set it for different times so you can see the sky in the past, present or future. This is a very useful app that is used by professional and amateur astronomers to plan their star-gazing sessions. You can use it for something as simple as identifying objects in the sky, or as advanced as planning astrophotography projects. We use it for our "Night Sky Viewer" interactive display.
Download at stellarium.org
Games & Simulations
Celestia is a free open-source universe simulator. We use a modified version for our "Solar System Explorer" as well as our public presentations. The basic version doesn't do much and you'll probably get bored after a while, but the idea is that you download or create extra software and addons to extend it. You won't see the same things we have at the Space Centre because we've added a lot of custom code to it, but you should be able to visit planets and see enough interesting things to keep you entertained for a while.
Download at celestiaproject.net
The University of Colorado has a fun collection of physics animations and sims called PhET. We use their orbit simulator and lunar lander but they have a lot more things you can play with.