Talk:2979: Sky Alarm

♫♪ Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me... ♪♫ :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:55, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I've tried to do just this by subscribing to a channel promisingly named "AstroAlert", which then proceeded to spam me 500 times per day with messages about a random meteor on the opposite part of the world. Woe. 162.158.110.200 05:15, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Hence the need for this alarm, to keep it LOCAL, :) That's the thing, any such thing needs a LOCATION, to limit results to what is locally relevant to each person. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

This comic seems super simple, so I added as muc( explanation as I can think of... NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Local58 moment 💔

172.70.85.138 11:27, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

With that device, no work is ever going to be done again... D: 108.162.221.24 11:36, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

There is a nice site called Astronomy Picture of the Day that is like this. Alas, it is "A cool space thing happened three days ago - sorry you missed it". --Divad27182 (talk) 11:41, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like it needs a sky dome camera system (like they made for immersive filmimg) on the roof coupled with statistical analysis (mistakenly aka AI) to recognise and record 'interesting' things, coupled with localised alerts for known phenomena. A product for someone? RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 11:46, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Most cool astronomical events don't come up so suddenly that you need an alarm. We know about eclipses years in advance, meteor showers recur annually, comets have months of warning, and unusual auroras are usually known a few days early. Anything sudden will probably also be short-lived, so by the time you get outside it will be over. Barmar (talk) 15:26, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

If you're anything like me, you're often eager to see (predicable space phenomenon) and then get reminded of it a day too late when the photos starts appearing on the internet. Though that could just as easily solved with a reminder on a standard calendar app, if only you had something reminding youto set up reminders. What would be nice would be an app where you put in your location and it gives you the next week's A) weather forecast, and B) list of interestingly visible space thingies. 172.69.246.142 14:38, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems like there should be a name for these alerts, like "Amber Alert" for missing children. I nominate "Neil Alert" -- it should probably use Neil deGrasse Tyson's voice. Barmar (talk) 15:28, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Since the characters in the comic are the same as in the previous ISS comic, I like to think that they're in the ISS and Megan is getting ready to do an EVA (ignore the fact that such a desk wouldn't make sense, or the walking, or that prepping for the EVA would probably take well over a full orbit) 172.71.223.93 17:58, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Dang, we really cleaned up all the incomplete explanations, didn't we? Either that, or someone just went around and removed all the tags New editor (talk) 19:50, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone know of anything like this? Something that will tell me about things like upcoming meteor showers, comets, auroras, etc. the day before, rather than hearing about it the day after from people who somehow knew about it? To this day I still have no idea how people find out about these things before they happen 162.158.154.134 (talk) 13:35, 1 September 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Offline, the national (and local) Weather broadcasts might give info on "what might be visible tonight". Or at least respond to the preceding News programme's "and finally..." if it features the note that supermoons will happen or aurora have a decent chance to and all that remains is the hope of clear sky. That's UK television, can't speak for wherever you are/what you might watch.

Online, it would depend upon what you can imagine wanting to know. Keep an eye on something obvious like space.com (which might have internal/external links to gateways that push notifications on various subjects) or go the full hog and search for "aurora alert", "meteor alert", "rocket launch alert" in every sort of phrnomenon that you think might (if timed/located well) interest you and be visible.

The comic device might be either configured to deal with everything the comic characters might be interested in, nails absolutely anything (without prejudice/selectability) or perhaps (over time) has an AI/heuristic element that 'learns' what random phenomena most interest you as it collates so many possible feed options (itself, or via its manufacturer's centrally maintained servers).

But it looks like a project ripe for a 'Maker' to try. Set up an Arduino/Raspberry Pi/whatever with a "speaker/siren and lights" housing and an internet connection with suitably configured feed-scraping commands run within it (or via a separate computer to which it connects) that makes a fuss whenever a suitable notification is passed. Add to that maybe some skyward-facing camera(s) with one degree or other of image-processing applied to their images to (for example) identify when a particularly nice sunset is happening with plenty of rose-tinted clouds. With enough foresight (and the right processing) it could pick up particularly aesthetic cloudscapes, the spontaneous murmurations of starlings, an amusing conjunction of contrails, the first snowflakes of winter or (back to space things) a surprise Earth-skimming bolide... whatever your imagination, technical tinkering and subsequent data-munging could get your "Sky's-Pi Alarm" (or whatever it is) to make its noises for.

I don't actually subscribe to anything (as proxy for my imagined self-contain/collating device), so I can't tell you any particularly good sources of info, but there'll be some out there. Like you can get earthquake alerts (or at least "yeah, we also know about it, be careful" semi-simultaneous detection), tornado alerts, flood aleets and other hobbyist/public-safety notification systems. 172.70.162.207 14:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

At the moment, a device like this might actually be useful for all of us who irritate their friends and family by going out every evening at around 10 when it's dark but Corona Borealis is still a fair distance above the horizon, because of this nova-in-waiting. There is a distinct chance it'll be cloudy on the nights it happens anyway, because that's reality: always pissing on the epic moment (this last part is a quote, here's the source) As with many glorious celestial events, if you don't know what it signifies, it'll just be another of many inconspicious little dots of light, and if you don't know or care what the constellations normally look like, you won't even notice. It'll still be an awesome once-in-a-lifetime event to watch, but be aware at all times that for all practical purposes (and for so-called "normal" people) the awesomeness is all in your head.* PaulEberhardt (talk) 15:30, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

• see [1644: Stargazing], [2017: Stargazing 2] and [2274: Stargazing 3] for further reference. To be honest, I'm actually waiting on xkcd's take on the event as much as on T Coronae Borealis going boom already. PaulEberhardt (talk) 15:30, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I previously changed the words from the alarm in the Transcript to italics, but I wasn't convinced that the noises from the alarm were also italicized. I see someone else changed them to italics as well, but I wonder if anyone else is of the same mind as myself. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 14:16, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

The transcript shouldn't actually use (or rely upon) formatting, really, though saying something like :[The device emits sounds and speech, in italics] ''The things the device says'' in both description and markup would satisfy both human and non-human readers better than one method alone. I've not been involved in that transcript, probably won't, but it's the kind of expansion that I'd expect (done with more thought than this quick note, maybe). 172.70.162.207 14:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)