Google Map of US Light Pollution

Dark Sky Finder

The Dark Sky Finder shows the effects of light pollution in the United States. The map also displays user submitted sites which are good locations for setting up telescopes. 

Light pollution is shown on the map via a heat map overlay. User submitted sites are displayed with simple map markers. If you click on a map marker you can view details about the submitted site beneath the map. 

Users can set the light pollution layer to on or off. Users can also add their own astronomy locations to the map by completing a short form. if you find a great location on the map and you want to share it with others you can get a URL to the map by choosing 'link to this view'.

Also See

Daylight Map - Map of current current day and night time in the world. Also shows the effects of light pollution around the world.

Battle of Britain - Bing Maps

"MSN has teamed up with Shoothill to present an interactive overview of theBattle of Britain. Zoom into a mosaic of archive images and documents; compare present-day maps with maps and charts showing bomb damage during the Blitz; and view high-resolution Photosynths of iconic RAF aircraft."

Mapperz states:
"This is one of the 'Best Bing Interactive Maps' for 2010 (and 1940)"



The TimeMap is based on Bing Maps Silverlight Control. It shows original maps, reconnaissance imagery and target documents of the German Luftwaffe. You can navigate to various locations through quick links in a target list for London and Coventry.

• The TimeScope can be dragged around to explore the location
• The TimeSlider lets you switch between various historic maps and satellite imagery and the Documents.
• DeepZoom - Compositions of the original target documents within the TimeScope.

Click for large view on the Map Controls, TimeSlider and TimeScope.

View the maps here:
http://news.uk.msn.com/in-depth/world-war-two/battle-of-britain/default.aspx

cross-posted from the Mapperz blog
http://mapperz.blogspot.com/2010/09/world-war-two-battle-of-britain-maps.html

A ton more data from the Pakistan flooding

Last month, we told you about Google's quest for more data to help with the massive flooding in Pakistan.

The "Unigeo initiative for Pakistan" has been developing a network link that has a ton of data related to the Pakistan flood.

The latest version (4.1) includes a slight "pre-loaded" transparency on the layers in order to keep the underlying information visible as well as a more ergonomic search panel.

Currently, the included layers are:

• Pakistan affected districts - 2010 Aug 16
• Flooding General overview - 2010 Aug 11
• Floods in Charsadda district - 2010 Aug 02
• Situation in Kheshgi area - 2010 Aug 04
• Charsadda and Nowshera districts - 2010 July
• Situation in Hyderabad - 2010 Aug 29
• Red Cross + Red Crescent Society - 2010 Aug 29

You can get the full KML file here, or check out their site for more information.

Another great resource to check out would be local.com.pk, which has quite a bit of excellent information regarding flood relief. For example, their Hunza Landslide page is very well done, and was featured in a recent TEDxLahore talk, which you can view here.

Find a Bus Top Shelter with Google Maps

Bus-Tops

Bus-Tops is a fascinating public art project in London. Bus-Tops will be installing screens on the roofs of bus shelters across London, creating a medium for artists to show their work. Currently the Bus-Tops team is asking Londoners to choose which bus shelters they would like Bus-Tops' screens to be installed on.

If you want to suggest a bus stop shelter in London for a Bus-Tops screen you can do so by simply entering an address or postcode on the Bus-Tops Google Map. Once you enter a address you can view bus shelters near that location. Clicking on a bus top marker will bring up more information on the shelter.

In order to enable the public to make bus stop suggestions Bus-Tops have created an excellent database of London bus stop shelters. If you click on any of the mapped bus stops you can click through to a dedicated page about that bus stop. As well as viewing the bus stop's position on a Google Map you can view it in Street View, you can get a unique URL for that stop and you can also view all nearby stops.

This is a great resource to find London bus shelters. Very occasionally it is known to rain in London. So, if you are a regular user of London buses, this could be a handy resource to find a shelter whilst waiting for your bus.

Interactive Video Coming to Google Maps?

Quiksee



When I first saw Quiksee in action last year I was blown away. It seems that I was not the only one as TechCrunch say that Google is now buying Quiksee.

Quiksee allows anyone to create their own video tours and add them to a Google Map. The results are very impressive. Play the video above to get an idea of what the results look like when embedded on Google Maps.

It will be interesting to see what Google do with this new acquisition. Will we soon see a new option added to the Google Maps 'more' button? At the moment it is possible to view crowd-sourced geo-tagged photographs and videos on 'Google Maps' from Panoramio and YouTube. My guess is that we might soon have the option to view geo-tagged interactive videos submitted to Quiksee directly on the main Google Maps page.

An Eventful Google Map

Mapping Events

Mapping Events is a mashup of Google Maps and Eventful to display upcoming events by location.

You can search for events on the map by category, place and date. You can then sort the results by popularity, date, title, relevancy and venue. The results of a search are displayed directly on the map and in the map sidebar.

If you click on a map marker an information window will open with details of the event, including the date, time and venue. The window also includes a link to get further details from Eventful.