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Celestial Bodies

street view overlay

▸ Site

▸ Epoch

▸ Bodies

▸ Overlay

Visor

Dims the photograph — Street View and the live camera alike — so the overlay reads against a bright sky.

▸ Calibration

Street View reports a zoom level, never its field of view. If the bodies slide off the scenery as you pan, the focal length is off — correct it here. Street View only: in AR, pinch the picture instead until the bodies sit on the scenery.

Basis

Street View imagery

This tool draws celestial bodies on top of a real Google Street View panorama. Google charges for that imagery, so it needs your own API key — there is no server behind this page to hold one for you.

  1. Open the Google Maps Platform console and pick or create a project (billing must be enabled; Google includes a monthly free allowance).
  2. Enable the Maps JavaScript API for that project.
  3. Go to Credentials → Create credentials → API key.
  4. Restrict the key to the sites you use it from (HTTP referrer) so nobody else can spend it.

Where the key goes: it is kept in this browser’s local storage and sent only to Google when the panorama loads. This page has no backend and never transmits it anywhere else. Clear it any time with Remove key.

Preloading it from a link: open ?apikey=YOUR_KEY (or the safer #apikey=YOUR_KEY, which never reaches any server) and the key is saved here, then wiped from the address bar so it cannot be bookmarked or copied out by accident. Treat such a link as the key itself — anyone you send it to gets your quota. Restrict the key by HTTP referrer first.

Without a key everything still works in Sky view: same positions, same tracks, just a plain horizon instead of a photo.