Save the Solar System navigator as a video
The Solar System navigator can now give you a short video of what it shows. Under the timeline there is a new Video row with two buttons.
Record the last year makes a 12-second clip. It starts twelve months ago and runs to today at a month per second, the same motion as the Play the last year button: the inner planets go round, Mars moves along, and the Roadster takes its slow lap. The clip ends on today's date and holds it for a moment.
Record a turn around the centred body makes a 10-second clip. Time stands still and the camera goes once around whatever you centred. Pick Saturn and you get the rings from every side, pick Uranus and you see it lying on its side, pick the Sun and you get the whole inner system turning past.
Before you press either button, choose the shape of the frame:
- 16:9 at 1280×720, for YouTube, X and most players;
- 1:1 at 1080×1080, for a feed;
- 9:16 at 1080×1920, for Reels, TikTok and Shorts.
Your choice is remembered. While a clip records, the view on the page switches to that shape so you see what goes into the file, and dragging is paused so a stray touch doesn't spoil the take. Everything else you set stays as it is: scale, layers, axes, the Roadster switch and the planet look all go into the clip.
Each frame carries a small strip at the bottom with the Skydex logo, the date the picture shows, and the page address. When the photo look is on, the strip also carries the credit for the planet maps. They come from Solar System Scope under a CC BY 4.0 licence, and that licence asks for the credit wherever the pictures appear, including in a video someone reposts.
When the clip is done, press Download. On a phone you also get a Share button that opens the system share sheet, so the clip can go straight to a chat or an app. Nothing is uploaded to us: the video is made in your browser and saved on your device.
A few honest limits. The clip is recorded in real time, so on an older phone it can come out a little less smooth than the page itself. Keep the tab in front while it records; if you switch away, the recording stops and the page tells you why. Browsers that can record H.264 give you an MP4, which plays everywhere. Firefox and some Chromium builds give a WebM instead, which plays in browsers and most apps, but some desktop players won't show its length.
If you make something nice with it, we'd like to see it in Discord.