Show HN: Open-source high-res Mars map, in natural colors

Hi HN, we are a small team of space fans who simply wanted a better Mars map.<p>Read about our motivation and process here <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;mars26&#x2F;the-most-detailed-mars-map-yet-7170e0cc851b" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;mars26&#x2F;the-most-detailed-mars-map-yet-717...</a>.<p>If you do want to keep up to date, feel free to follow us on Twitter. More features are in the pipeline <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;marstwentysix" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;marstwentysix</a><p>We love PRs and love to hear your feedback on <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mars-2026&#x2F;mars26_com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mars-2026&#x2F;mars26_com</a>!<p>— Space P at Mars26.com

This looks pretty awesome.<p>First thing I notice is that scrolling a tiny bit fills my browser back button history with one address per scroll tick? That rather rude.

Very neat, but there are only a few places on Mars I recognize well enough to find. It would be good to have a list of points of interest and a way to go to them.<p>There&#x27;s also a Twitter symbol at one point on the globe; not sure why?

Does it support driving directions and traffic overlay?

I want to like it but its pretty rough as-is. I feel the colors need lot of tweaking to look right, the blending in between missing data on both ctx and viking needs to be improved. Right now the pretty red planet looks sickly and moldy, with awkward artifacts all over the place.<p>Compare e.g. the surroundings of Jezero crater (Percys landing site) on this Mars26 vs HRSC data:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mars26.com&#x2F;#heading=0&amp;latitude=18.628109809050898&amp;longitude=77.70925090612008&amp;tilt=0&amp;zoom=8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mars26.com&#x2F;#heading=0&amp;latitude=18.628109809050898&amp;lo...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maps.planet.fu-berlin.de&#x2F;#map=8&#x2F;4646647.81&#x2F;1124272.2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maps.planet.fu-berlin.de&#x2F;#map=8&#x2F;4646647.81&#x2F;1124272.2</a><p>Or this region; I&#x27;m pretty sure its not supposed to be <i>blue</i>: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mars26.com&#x2F;#heading=359.79651286245115&amp;latitude=-40.944069824868876&amp;longitude=70.69793578883082&amp;tilt=0.2816141922251806&amp;zoom=5.030236301766781" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mars26.com&#x2F;#heading=359.79651286245115&amp;latitude=-40....</a>

Looks good! I like the atmospheric halo around the planet when you zoom out being dependant on the light direction and the angle you&#x27;re looking at the planet from.<p>I&#x27;ve tried to get a grasp of how it&#x27;s working on the 3D side by having a look at the github sourcecode, but seems like it&#x27;s all managed by the &quot;sceneview&quot; module from the ArcGIS software as opposed to a custom implementation, is it?

Very neat! Nice work! Your Twitter app permission list is very excessive tho.

The Murray Lab has done great work on the CTX imagery (which this is based on), and it&#x27;s also pretty well documented. If you are interested in that sort of thing you can read about it here: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;murray-lab.caltech.edu&#x2F;CTX&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;murray-lab.caltech.edu&#x2F;CTX&#x2F;index.html</a><p>Are you using the public beta dataset, or did you get access to more refined data?

&gt;While Google’s Mars map uses low resolution images taken in the 70’s<p>Have you checked out Google Earth for Mars? (not Google mars). It provides hi-rise images, and in 3d.

there seems to be excessive distorsion at the poles. Is this for a lack of data, or is it due to the coordinate system?<p>The poles are the most interesting part to me, but there doesn&#x27;t seem to be a way to control lighting, so they are at least partially obscured. Moreover, I&#x27;d have expected the terminator to be less fuzzy due to Mars&#x27; thin atmosphere, but it might be just me.

Btw, it breaks the back button atleast on Firefox when navigating. I think its because of 302 redirects from the backend?

Oh god, did Twitter infect mars already?

Is there an actual image of the mars surface somewhere? I poked around the repo but could not find one.

Attempting to zoom in or out on my iPhone 12 freezes the site. I’m using Safari.

When zoomed out black tweets do not show against the backdrop of space.

Oh wow! Awesome work!