Local horizon · System motion · Galactic reference
Galactic State Find your bearings. Keep your place.
Your horizon is one way into a wider map.without needing to leave here.
The compass needs JavaScript to calculate directions. The seven reflection prompts below remain readable. No location is requested automatically.
Example place: 0° latitude, 0° longitude. This is not your detected location. Set your own place below to personalize the compass.
Compass Sky sphere Your posture
HORIZON COMPASS TRUE NORTH AT TOP
The dial shows horizontal bearings. Separate lanes keep references apart; radius does not represent height or distance. Dashed guides lie below the horizon. Read elevation alongside bearing.
NOW · DEVICE CLOCK
Hold Now
Explore another time · UTC, 2000–2049 UTC date and time Set UTC −6 hours +6 hours
Calculated for this time, not a live observatory feed.
An optional pause
A wider view. A gentle return. Journey duration 3 minutes 6 minutes Begin
No sound, required pose, or prescribed breathing. Stay comfortably seated. These are invitations, not tests.
Position direction
Galactic center
True bearing —
Elevation —
Angle from your gaze —
Reference —
+90 0 −90 Above and below refer to your geometric horizon, not visibility through weather or buildings.
Angles are approximate. They do not measure personal or spiritual alignment.
01 / Your place
Clear my place A point on Earth. Example · equator, zero longitude.
Set my place Use device location
No device permission requested.
One position fix, only when requested. No location history. Manual coordinates work offline.
02 / Your look
One comfortable direction. Set my look
Manual direction. The camera never changes this setting.
Optional phone turns Enter a known true bearing and elevation, point your phone’s back-camera axis that way, then calibrate. This tracks relative turns—not automatic true north. No camera images are taken. Sensors can drift; manual controls always work.
Enable turns Stop turns
Calibrate to my entered direction Off. No sensor permission requested.
Rest somewhere safe. Never look directly at the Sun. Below-horizon markers are geometric guides, not visible objects.
A second kind of compass
Seven perspectives. Keep what you notice separate from what it means to you. These prompts use the project’s proposed framework—not astronomical coordinate systems, ranks, or evidence of special powers. Leave any of them blank.
A wider map.
Only in this page’s memory unless explicitly included in a downloaded file.
01 LocalNotice one thing close enough to touch. What supports you here?
Local note 02 GlobalWhat do you share with other lives aboard Earth?
Global note 03 SystemWhat changes when you include Earth’s relationship with the Sun?
System note 04 GalacticWhat can a wider map show—and what can it not tell you?
Galactic note 05 UniversalWhich value would you carry into an unfamiliar situation?
Universal note 06 MultiversalImagine a different possibility. What assumption changes?
Multiversal note 07 InfiniteWhat may remain open without needing an answer today?
Infinite note
A compass, not an oracle. This independent educational tool reuses the numerical model developed for With Earth. Galactic State names the project’s scale of attention, not a government, a new dimension, or a physical power. Reflection prompts do not affect astronomical calculations.
Three different norths The dial’s N is local geographic true north . Galactic north is the adopted north pole of the Galactic coordinate plane. Magnetic north is not calculated. The model does not automatically know which way you or your phone face.
The references GC is the direction of the center adopted in the Astropy v4.0 Galactocentric convention (RA 266.4051°, declination −28.936175°). GN uses the FK5/J2000 Galactic pole at RA 192.8594812065°, declination 27.1282511809°. SM is the Sun’s velocity direction in a pinned Galactocentric model: (12.9, 245.6, 7.78) km/s, Galactic-center distance 8.122 kpc and solar height 20.8 pc. These are declared conventions, not new measurements.
EO is Earth’s heliocentric motion approximated by the Earth–Moon barycenter (EMB); SU is the opposite EMB position direction; SP is the selected place’s rotational velocity relative to Earth’s center. A velocity direction and a position direction are distinct. Their drawing lengths do not compare speeds.
Approximation and coverage The Earth model uses JPL Table 1 approximate elements, IAU-1976 precession, approximate Greenwich mean sidereal time, and a local east–north–up basis. This tool supports 2000–2049. Browser UTC is used in place of UT1 and ephemeris time; TT/TDB corrections, nutation, polar motion, parallax, observer altitude, refraction, aberration, local terrain and exact EMB-to-Earth displacement are omitted. The small FK5/ICRS bias is also omitted. Readouts rounded to 0.1° are not a claim to 0.1° total pointing accuracy; device and manual alignment may be much worse.
At a zenith or nadir the bearing is undefined. At a geographic pole true-north direction requires a longitude convention; the app uses your entered meridian. Spin vanishes at the pole. No live ephemeris or observatory feed is used.
How to read the pictures The dial plots bearings in distinct lanes. Lane radius is not elevation or distance. The Sky sphere is an orthographic unit-direction sketch in your local frame: the oval represents the horizon, the violet ring the adopted Galactic coordinate equator, and the blue arrow your gaze. It is not a star catalog or camera image. Dashed sections lie below the geometric horizon. A dot there is not something visible through Earth.
Your posture reuses a schematic local-frame avatar from With Earth, with right hand along Earth’s heliocentric motion and left hand toward the Sun. Its gaze follows the entered bearing and elevation. The sketch is not a body measurement or anatomical guidance. Use small, comfortable gestures or just imagine the directions. Earth and Sun separation in the small orbit sketch is rescaled. The 3D views orbit and tilt without roll; camera movements do not change the chosen gaze.
Permissions and privacy No account, analytics, cookies, local storage, network requests, microphone or camera. Device location is a single opt-in fix; your operating system’s provider may contact its own location service. Phone orientation is opt-in and manually calibrated. Leaving the tab stops sensor access, cancels pending callbacks and pauses a running reflection; nothing automatically restarts sensor access. Clear my place removes the active coordinates and stops device access. Closing discards page memory, although browsers may retain back/forward snapshots.
Exports exclude the entire place/time/local-direction set by default, since directions plus time can reveal a location even without printed coordinates. You can explicitly include it and separately include your notes. Imported projects restore held, with device access off. Files and screenshots that you choose to share may contain private information.
Sources and related work JPL: approximate planetary positions and fitted intervals USNO: sidereal time ; altitude and azimuth Astropy: Galactocentric definitions and v4.0 parameters Astropy: Galactic coordinate definition and J2000 pole W3C: device orientation ; MDN: geolocation System State I: the project’s proposed framework Sources do not endorse the tool. This is not navigation software, a treatment, or an instrument that directs celestial bodies.
Make the distinction visible
Close One place. Several references. Set your place first. Then enter a comfortable looking direction using true bearing and elevation . Choose a reference card to inspect its bearing, height and angular separation from that gaze.
On the compass, the outer scale follows true geographic north. Each reference has its own concentric lane so markers do not need to share one ring. A dashed needle means below the horizon. Its radius is only a layout choice: always read the elevation too.
Sky sphere lets you rotate the horizon, Galactic coordinate equator and solid direction arrows. Your posture shows a schematic body facing your entered direction, pointing to the Sun and Earth’s orbital movement. Choose Behind figure for the simplest left/right comparison. Arrows and figures are diagrams, not things to aim at in the sky.
Hold freezes the event time. Now returns to the device clock. The optional journey changes the selected reference and pauses to return to your surroundings. Nothing asks you to match an alignment score.
Never look directly at the Sun. You may stop or leave any prompt blank.