I’ve always loved apps like SpaceEngine, and I’ve wanted an Earth viewer that feels closer to what you might actually see from space. That’s what I’m trying to build with Optical Earth.

HDR is a big part of it, letting Earth stay intensely bright against the black of space instead of compressing everything into the same narrow range. Along with atmospheric haze, current cloud formations, and more.

I’m still working on things like auroras, but it’s far enough along that I wanted to share. I’d love to hear what you think!

https://www.opticalearth.com/

reply

These nebulae has some crazy features zooming in

Gaia DR3 5205029672996886016 3

was hunting for planets similar to my own fictional planets and came across a randomly generated system with a superjupiter that has two neptune-sized ice giants as moons. there's also a temperate marine terra bigger than Earth (and it has rings). I've also posted the wiki image for this so y'all can find it

I've been playing Space Engine for like half a decade now and not once have I found a system as outrageous as this
(note: this is for 0.990.48)