Settings

Every choice applies at once and is kept in this browser only.

Appearance

Glass effect

The top bar and other glass surfaces. Full bends the light at the edges like a lens, Subtle is frosted only and Off uses solid panels.
The SPHEREx all-sky map near the centre of the Milky Way (SPHEREx DR1, Caltech/IPAC/NASA; IRSA). Point or tap to move the lens.

Motion

Page fades, scroll effects, sliding controls, and whether the Lab’s blink starts by itself.
A small ? after a technical word, as in arcseconds, says it has a short explanation. The dotted underline stays either way.

Sky globe

How the Sky globe opens. Links that name a star or a view still open it.

Star detail

Bright only draws about 8,900 stars, More about 41,000 and All every one of the 117,955 Hipparcos stars. Fewer can help an older device; search and the star lists still find every star.

Start in

The sky as a sphere around you, or out in 3D space with each star at its distance from the Sun.
The stick figures of the constellations. Layers in the Sky turns them on or off there.
The SPHEREx all-sky map behind the stars, as on the globe’s Layers menu.

Lab

How the Lab starts. A link that names a detector still opens on it.

First detector

SPHEREx has six detectors, from D1 (the shortest wavelengths, 0.75 micrometres) to D6 (the longest, 5). Colour shows D1, D3 and D6 together. A field without your choice opens in D6.

Blink speed

Time per frame when the Lab blinks between dates. The Lab’s own slider still changes it there.
500 ms

Barnard’s Star in SPHEREx, Aug 2025

The middle of the Lab’s prepared field, enlarged. It moves about 10 arcseconds in the year.

Data and privacy

Planet X Hunter sets no cookies and runs no analytics. The few things it remembers stay in this browser, listed here.

Reading this browser’s storage…

Connection

The Planet X Hunter API looks up stars, builds new Lab fields and reads SPHEREx spectra. The five prepared fields work without it.

Checking the API…

Address
None

The time is the full round trip from this browser. After a quiet spell the first answer can take a few seconds while the service starts.

Keyboard shortcuts

In the Lab, when no text field has focus. Press ? there to see them over the sky.

General

  • Command paletteCtrlK
  • This list?
  • Cancel the tool, then clear the selectionEsc

Blink

  • Play or pause the blinkSpace
  • Previous or next frame←→
  • Slower or faster[]
  • Hard blink or crossfadeC
  • Wipe compare on or offW
  • EpochsE
  • Then vs NowT
  • DifferenceD
  • Detector D1 to D616

Tools

  • Inspect toolV
  • RulerR
  • ApertureA

View

  • RA/Dec gridG
  • CrosshairX
  • Zoom to the fieldF
  • Zoom in or out (sky focused)+−