Atlas of Light
Atlas of Light
Every earthly species migrate for their survival.
The human being has the particularity to move also by desire.
The need to explore new territories, to discover other cultures.
For this reason, since the highest antiquity, we have developed cartography.
Satellite imagery and 3D display are among the most recent tools.
The dawn of a new era
Our journey on Earth begins at dawn, on the shores of the Salagou Lake in the Hérault department, Occitanie region, southern France.
Slowly, the Sun approaches the horizon. The sky clears up, tinted with the yellow-orange color characteristic of summer, the brightness of the stars fades, the contours of the relief appear. A point of light emerges in the southeast corner of the sky. It is Sirius, the brightest star in our sky. We are on August 20, 2022. It makes its heliacal rising, that is to say its reappearance in the dawn light after having remained invisible in the night sky for nearly four months. It will soon disappear again, drowned in the glow of the rising Sun.
Simulation of the heliacal rising of the star Sirius in the sky of the Occitanie region, southern France:
shortly after appearing in the southeastern corner of the sky it will disappear, fading into the glow of the rising Sun.
Move the cursor laterally to materialize the effects of light pollution on the landscape contours (*).
(*) This simulation was performed using the WebWorldWind interface developed by the NASA/ESA consortium and distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.