The sky from Earth is the piece’s human-eye view: standing on the ground and looking up, seeing only the stars and glow an unaided eye could pick out.
About The sky from Earth
From a dark site the eye sees a sky crowded with stars and the band of the Milky Way, split by dark lanes of dust such as the Great Rift. All of them lie in our part of the Galaxy, except a handful of smudges such as the Magellanic Clouds and Andromeda, the most distant thing most people will ever see with their own eyes.
The constellations are patterns in this view only. Their stars are not grouped in space; they merely line up when seen from where we stand.
What you see in the piece
Press E for HUMAN EYE and N for the constellations. Stars below the eye’s limit simply vanish, and the exposure keys ([ ]) mimic letting the eye adapt to the dark.
Questions
Why are most stars invisible to the naked eye?
Far fewer than people imagine: only the nearer and more luminous stars clear the eye’s limit, and light pollution in towns and cities removes most of those.
What is the farthest thing you can see with the naked eye?
For most people, the Andromeda Galaxy, a faint oval smudge under dark skies.