Watch face

Amaterasu: Celestial Chronometer

by secretsciencelab

Saving a face to your collection is part of Pro.

About this face

“Welcome to Space Ship Earth. This is your personal Celestial Chronometer -- your navigation companion during your orbital stay at Sun Station G2V.” Transform your watch into a 24/7 personal astro computer. This watch face uses your GPS location and local time for live calculations of visible celestial events. Enjoy the ecliptic dance of the sun, moon, stars & planets & appreciate natural phenomena like seasons, analemmas, eclipses & tides. Reflect on our place in a solar system that’s forever in motion. Learn celestial navigation using the sky -- day or night. COMPLICATIONS: - 3 hands: hour + minute hands (mean solar time) & sidereal hand (star time) - 2 optional hands for apparent solar time & lunar day time (can be used to predict high/low tides) - Daytime mode: sun chart + sun position for your latitude, with analemmas showing the Equation of Time - Nighttime mode: circumpolar constellations & correct orientation - The 4 classic “wandering stars”: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn - Moon position + phase - Align celestial bodies shown on watch face to find North - 3 data fields (HR, date, next sun event, digital time, notification count) - 4 data triangles (battery, body battery, daily steps, daily floors, stress level, move bar) - 5 alternate time zones DESIGN - We have circle watches. We use the circle to tell time. But what else can we draw in a circle? - In my previous watchface (2pi Pulse Halo) we looked inward to the Heart. We explored how a personal metric like HR sketches patterns throughout our repeating days. - This time, we look to the stars. By doing so, we retrace the footsteps of our ancestors -- explorers, scientists, mathematicians & philosophers who also gazed at the heavens & wondered about our place in the universe. We also re-discover the origins of the time & date systems we use today. - Incidentally, our Earth is round. Because of that, astronomy phenomena we observe from Earth can be displayed as a polar chart on our round watches. This watch face squeezes almost every useful astronomy complication possible into a cool battery-friendly watch face. - In addition to astronomy complications, the watch face displays our usual Garmin data on the bezel’s edge. Curved text data fields (date, sun event, heart rate) & orbiting data triangles (daily steps %, battery %, body battery %) keep info on the perimeter & avoid cluttering the main display. - Supercar designer Frank Stephenson says wheels should have an odd number of spokes for the feeling of movement. And so, the watch face layout features odd-numbered elements (e.g. 3 data fields, 3 hands). - The hands are dynamically z-clipped to simulate depth & stacking. This produces a clean look with no intersecting lines when hands pass over each other. Yet, they're transparent so complications underneath remain visible. - The text & hands are angular to contrast the curves of the sky. - Continuing the design philosophy from my last watch face: “digital watch faces shouldn't copy physical watch faces”. We can do anything in the digital world, so let’s explore designs impossible on a physical watch! - There are many sun deities in history, but this watch face is named after the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu. In the mythology, she banishes the moon god, forever separating day & night. Since then, the moon chases the sun but can never quite catch her. TECHNICAL - The astronomy calculations use your latest GPS location. On your first use, make sure you have a fresh GPS lock (e.g., by holding the GPS button or starting a GPS activity). Your latest location is cached & used whenever no live location is available. - anti-burn-in is auto-enabled for AMOLED devices. In AOD mode, a checkerboard overlay is applied to reduce active pixels to 10% and ensure no pixel is on for 3 minutes. - Whenever possible, screen elements are redrawn independently (only when there's change) and cached as a BufferedBitmap to save CPU cycles/power.

• free
• minimalist
• digital