Not sure if this is the right place to tell you this, but no one wants to buy a pdf of a star chart. If I want a computer star chart I'll use a program to generate one live. It might not be as pretty as yours, but it's interactive.<p>Now if you actually printed large (huge?) format posters of the star chart you would have a market.<p>People would love to print a start chart as visible in a specific special place and time. It would be a great gift for weddings, birthdays, graduation, etc.
Thanks for this article!<p>I had a comparable experience last week launching an online Markdown editor:<p><a href="http://akaya.me" rel="nofollow">http://akaya.me</a><p>and nobody noticed, as I blogged about it here:<p><a href="http://blog.medusis.com/all-quiet-on-the-western-front-silence-its-ha" rel="nofollow">http://blog.medusis.com/all-quiet-on-the-western-front-silen...</a><p>But I don't think you're right when you say "<i>it's possible that nobody wants what greaterskies offers today. And most of the features that I've been adding for the last week are probably irrelevant.</i>" Well, it's <i>possible</i>, yes, but you don't know that one way or the other.<p>Nothing happened because nobody saw your announcement (or mine); nobody saw it because HN gets hit by a deluge of posts at any time of the day, and luck has a big part in deciding which ones don't sink immediately. (Time of day matters, but time of week matters also; I since noticed that slow days (Sundays esp.) are better for the "Show HN" type of message.)<p>I think what we need are two things:<p>- on the functional side, beta-testers that are dependable (as opposed to casual); maybe that means they're paid, but maybe we can do with "honest friends"<p>- on the marketing side, a <i>story</i>, of which your post is a start (I'm still looking for mine).<p>Don't give up! and please keep us posted.
I like the idea. I am trying to buy a chart for my wedding date in Pittsburgh, but the download after preview fails to happen. I using Chrome on a Mac. Maybe I am using it wrong. I don't know.<p>Anyway, here are my feature requests:<p>1) See what a chart looks like immediately. Can be pre-generated. (Someone already said this in a previous comment)<p>2) Would like to annotate my chart with notes or custom title, subtitle, etc<p>3) Share chart on various social media sites as an interactive widget or simply a photo. (Someone already said this in a previous comment)<p>4) Print to a T-shirt or mug on zazzle.com or other T-shirt site (you can probably make money here as an affiliate).<p>5) This is a little crazy, but maybe overlay my wedding gift registry items on top of the star chart so that people can buy our wedding registry items in a cool and interactive way instead of navigating through multiple totally crappy wedding registry sites. (again you can probably make money as an affiliate here)... it's just an idea...<p>Good luck with the project!
Two suggestions:<p>1. After filling in the info I started looking where to click next and was a bit surprised that it is above to the left of the map, I think you have to make the interface flow a bit more intuitive.
2. It would be great to see the image in small format before I pay.
Thanks. A little tip: Make the star chart in the blog link to <a href="http://greaterskies.com/" rel="nofollow">http://greaterskies.com/</a> . I clicked it more than once before I realized I had to find the link in the text.
The traffic from HN has reduced my previous statistics to noise, so I've thought I'd as well implement some of the feedback I've got, online now. Also, the server is suffering and I cannot try to set load balancing because I need to run to a meeting (why didn't I before?). So I've added feedback to let you know at which steps the server is struggling, asking for some patience.<p>Thanks everybody!
Awesome job man!<p>Ease of use requests for the star chart page:<p><pre><code> 1. GeoIP db to get current location
2. Autofill location
3. autofill date
4. autofill local time
</code></pre>
GEO IP: <a href="http://blog.programmableweb.com/2009/03/31/3-free-ways-to-geolocate-by-ip/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.programmableweb.com/2009/03/31/3-free-ways-to-ge...</a><p>Viral ideas:<p><pre><code> 1. Allow creation of star charts from FB data (eg. City / DOB)
2. Add FB share link.
3. People buy star charts for friends
</code></pre>
It pains me that people believe in this psuedo-science, but will make you money ideas:<p><pre><code> 1. Allow some kind of astrological star chart that is
tangentially related to their astrological sign.
2. Pair with FB (eg. Fred's Libra Starchart)
</code></pre>
Btw, yesterday was my birthday and if I could have posted this on my wall it would have been awesome. (Not the astrology part)
Awesome project! I do have one feature request (preferably before my wife's birthday...), which is the ability to add custom text as a heading of some kind.<p>For example, I would be ordering a picture of the night sky over Rome on a particular night, and it would be nice if the poster said so - not everyone knows Rome's lat./long. off by heart.
A star chart of the Star Wars "Universe" would be the best thing ever.
(and I know there would be licensing issues)<p>Also, what about EVE Online players, would it be cool to offer them some kind of print out?<p>(Think of any other persistent games, or imaginary universes).<p>Think of things people are passionate about.
I think this is great, but I ain't paying for anything I can't see. The flow should be Enter Location -> Image Preview -> Share-on-FB or Pay-to-Print. That's your MVP. Hard-Code it for a few locations or show some random image previews.
Great site, but I found the interface very confusing. It took me ages to figure out what to do next at every step. The resizing text is an ok idea, but currently it's more distracting than guiding. Hope that's helpful. :)
How is the chart supposed to be interpreted? Is it me looking up at the sky on a particular night seeing a a 360-degree view of the stars?<p>Also, how are future positions determined?