iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

bsky.app/profile/gaia...

I have been working on a volume version of the particle-based Milky Way galaxy for #GaiaSky (by @stefanpw.bsky.social). It is still WIP, but it works quite well already. In the video, the first tests, running in real time on a graphics card from 2016. codeberg.org/gaiasky/gaia...

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Gaia DR4 is coming on December 2, and we’ve been hard at work designing the catalogs for #GaiaSky. We’ve made some important changes compared to DR3. Wanna learn more? 👇 gaiasky.space/news/2026/ga...

gaiasky.space

Gaia Sky | DR4 star catalogs

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The inclusion of JPEG XL in 152 was what made me switch back to Firefox after many years using qutebrowser. Good stuff.

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Firefox for Web Developers @webdevs.firefox.com · 24/08/2026

Intent to ship: JPEG XL! This will be on-by-default in Firefox 157, which should become the main release version at the end of September. This includes key JPEG XL features like progressive rendering. groups.google.com/a/mozilla.or...

groups.google.com

Intent to ship: JPEG XL

As of Firefox 157 I intend to turn JPEG XL decoding on by default on all platforms. It has been developed behind image.jxl.enabled, which today is on by default on Nightly only, and has had a Firefox…

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The eclipse yesterday was amazing. What an experience. I took some photos with my small LX-15 which turned out alright. I knew what to expect but the moment of totality, when the corona ignited and the land went fully dark, still caught me off guard.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

All set and ready! 😎☀️🌕

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European Space Agency @esa.int · 12/08/2026

Eclipse day! ☀️ Today's total solar eclipse is visible from Greenland, Iceland, northeastern Portugal and Spain. Most of the rest of Europe, northern North America and western Africa will witness a partial solar eclipse. More info: www.esa.int/Science_Expl... #EuropeanSolarEclipse

Map of Earth shown as a globe, with the focus on its northern hemisphere. A red, C-shaped arc marked 'total eclipse' reaches from northeast Russia, past the North Pole, Greenland, Iceland and the Iberian Peninsula. An orange oval surrounds this arc, marked 'partial eclipse', covering most of Europe, Canada and parts of the USA, the western edge of Africa and the northeastern corner of Russia.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Close-up detail of Spain and Portugal.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Today is the day. Some time after 18.00 UTC, a solar Eclipse will be seen from the Iberian peninsula. Animations with #GaiaSky. First, a wide view of the Eclipse as it sweeps the Earth, with umbra/penumbra lines.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

The Solar Eclipse of August 12, 2026. Wide view.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Solar Eclipse of August 12, 2026. Close view of the Iberian peninsula.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

#GaiaSky 3.8.0 is out now! It includes exciting new features in the UI and the procedural planets system, and lots of fixes. gaiasky.space/news/2026/ga...

gaiasky.space

Gaia Sky | Gaia Sky 3.8.0

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Gaia Sky is ready for the next release, I think...

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Celestia @celestiaproject.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Side-by-side comparison of a sunset on Earth, left is using the latest master build, right is using the HDR build. #space #computergraphics #rendering #OpenGL #opensource #simulator #planetarium #CelestiaProject

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Solar Eclipse of August 12, 2026. Close view of the Iberian peninsula.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

The Solar Eclipse of August 12, 2026. Wide view.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

A few procedurally generated planets. #GaiaSky

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

The procedural generation system in #GaiaSky will get a little face lift with better algorithms and a more accessible parametrization. Below is a little video showcasing some of it. 🍿

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

This makes it fully parametric while keeping a reasonable visual fidelity. I'm happy with the result!

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I was considering using Eric Burneton's "Precomputed Atmospheric Scattering" method. It is super fast (precomputation, he) but needs compute shaders (no macOS on OpenGL). So I used the classic Nishita/O'Neil technique with Burneton's density scale function. Added ozone on top.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Our new model is not too heavy on the GPU. It works well even on laptop iGPUs from ~2017. Number of samples can go as low as ~4-5 without losing much fidelity. It can be made to work per-vertex to reduce the number of calculations, but banding may appear. Also, it is fully parametric.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Firefox now supports JPEG XL! Activate in Settings > Firefox Labs!

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

PSA: @firefox.com 152, released yesterday, already supports JPEG XL! But the feature is behind a checkbox in Settings > Firefox Labs, so do not forget to enable it!

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

📢📢📢 We are proud to announce the release of #GaiaSky 3.7.4. This release brings a major overhaul of the atmospheric scattering model with ozone absorption, and important bugfixes for the keyframe system. gaiasky.space/news/2026/ga...

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Just a screenshot of the Earth. Been working on the amtospheric scattering shader. #GaiaSky

A view of the Earth in Gaia Sky featuring realistic atmospheric scattering.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Today we release #GaiaSky 3.7.3! 📢📢📢 This release focuses on QoL improvements and bugfixes. gaiasky.space/news/2026/ga...

gaiasky.space

Gaia Sky | Gaia Sky 3.7.3

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ICCUBDivulga @iccubdivulga.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

🔭 L’ #ICCUB a la XII Festa de la Ciència de la @ubdivulga.bsky.social! Tallers d’eclipsis, llum, quarks, física quàntica i fins i tot per escoltar l’univers 🎧✨ Una jornada plena de curiositat, preguntes i ciència compartida. Gràcies per acostar-vos-hi 💫 #ICCUB #Divulgació #FestaCiènciaUB @ub.edu

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

#GaiaDR4 is coming! Mark your calendars: 𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝟐 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔. This release contains data from the first 5.5 years of the mission. The data volume will be 50x larger than DR3! www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dat...

cosmos.esa.int

Data Release 4 - Gaia - Cosmos

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

🍎 To all macOS users: Gaia Sky can now be installed via brew! Learn more here: gaia.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/gaiasky/docs...

gaia.ari.uni-heidelberg.de

Installation — Gaia Sky docs

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Loading datasets on-the-fly in #GaiaSky just got easier: We've added a new "Installed Datasets" tab to the load dialog, allowing you to quickly jump into your library without browsing folders. The classic file picker is still there for your custom .vot, .csv, and .fits files. Watch below! 🎬

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

I'll credit 'NASA/Eyes on the Solar System' for the original model, and the add-on authors for 'modifications'.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Had to do some clean-up, mostly due to the packed PBR textures, but it works.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Thanks! Scratch the format issue. I compiled celestia+tools, used cmodfix to convert to ASCII, and wrote a small script to convert to wavefront. ASCII cmod maps well to obj+mtl.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Also, the models are in CMOD format. Is there any way to convert to Wavefront, glTF, or anything more standard?

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

I have downloaded the add-on, and I see no license file in the zip. Before starting to look into the model itself, I would like to clear up whether this is released under a permissive license that we can use.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Would be very much interested actually!

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Nope, I went with a generic capsule model. Would be great to be able to use yours, it looks awesome!

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Anyone know where I can find an open&free Orion service module 3D model? I looked at the NASA and ESA websites, but there's only a rough model for 3D printing. All models in sketchfab&co seem to be paid.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Here is an animation of the Artemis-II mission and the Lunar flyby. #Artemis #Artemis2 #NASA #ESA #GaiaSky @exploration.esa.int @esa.int

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Josef Aschbacher @josefaschbacher.esa.int · 08/04/2026

Them: Tell me Europe is mission-critical to bringing humanity back to the Moon without telling me Europe is mission-critical to bringing humanity back to the Moon. Me:

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Release day: #GaiaSky 3.7.2 is out! 📢📢📢 This one comes with many new features and bug fixes, as usual. See the release notes here: gaiasky.space/news/2026/ga...

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I liked this #ArtemisII picture of the Moon so much, that I tried to recreate it in #GaiaSky. Left is the real picture, right is Gaia Sky.

"A Moment with the Moon" picture, aken by the Artemis II crew at 2:19 p.m. EDT.

Recreation of "A Moment with the Moon" in Gaia Sky.

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Gaia Sky @gaiasky.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Amazing, breathtaking sights.

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European Space Agency @esa.int · 07/04/2026

✅ #Artemis II update: 'Earthset', 6 April 2026, and 'totality', 7 April, seen from lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, a view few humans have ever witnessed (pics: NASA) 🔗 www.nasa.gov/gallery/jour... @exploration.esa.int l

On a black background of space, a blue and white Earth just before 'setting' behind the Moon, in foreground, seen from Artemis II, 6 April 2026

Totality seen from lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, revealing a view few humans have ever witnessed, a dark disc surrounded by a pale solar corona.

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