Enjoy the view!
Auto-updating photos of the Earth from 1.5 million Km away for your desktop wallpaper or screen saver.
The DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) satellite is in the Lagrange point L1, approximately 1.5 million Km from Earth. http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/ From this position it always sees the sun-illuminated side of the Earth.
High resolution photos from its EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) camera are uploaded on http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/ every day, within 12 to 36 hours from the time they are taken. For each day there are about 10-14 photos: approximately one every two hours.
This script downloads the photo with the closest time to the present time of the day (within 2 hours), starting from the present day and going backwards until such a photo is found. The photo is saved in the /photos/ folder (within the folder where the script is installed). This can be used to create a desktop wallpaper which auto-updates with these photos: an awesome Earth-looking window from a great vantage point in space. It can also be used to create an awesome screen-saver.
The script needs:
- Python (tested on v.3.9)
- Crone
Both should come by default in all Unix systems (Linux and Mac).
Once the SpaceviewLive folder is copied somewhere on your mac:
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Double click on install.command. A folder /photos/ is created (within the folder where the script is installed) and the photos are downloaded inside. Every 30 minutes the script will check for an update on the DSCOVR website.
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With MacOSX, in order to put these pictures as wallpaper and make it refresh automatically:
- Open ‘System Preferences’
- Click on ‘Desktop & Screen Saver’
- Click on the ‘Desktop’ tab
- Click on the ‘+’ on the left-hand side and add the /photos/ folder
- Select the checkbox ‘Change picture’ and select 15 minutes (or lower)
- Select ‘Adapt to Screen’ and change the background color to black.
- You can select ‘Random order’, it works independently of this.
- In a very similar way you can create an awesome screen saver!
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Enjoy the view!
Note: There are two identical photos in the /photos/ folder in order to force MacOS X to refresh them correctly.
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Put the files DSCOVR.py and install_shell.sh in a folder.
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Access that folder with the terminal and run the shell script with:
./install_shell.shA folder /photos/ is created (within the folder where the script is installed) and the photos are downloaded inside. Every 30 minutes the script will check for an update on the DSCOVR website.
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From the terminal, the list of active crone jobs can be checked with the command
crontab -l -
Select the /photos/ folder in your wallpaper preferences (the precise way depends on the system).
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Cancel all the files contained in the package.
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To remove the automatic download open crone and cancel the line with the job. A good way to do this is write this in a terminal window:
env EDITOR=nano crontab -eCancel the job save the file by pressing Control + O, then Enter to accept and finally exit nano by pressing Control + X.