Real Star Constellations in the Wii Forecast Channel's Globe View

[wraggster]

Via josef

When I saw videos of the Wii Forecast Channel, I noticed the stars in the background were not really random, but seemed to resemble the rough pattern I'd expect to see in the actual sky, given dark enough viewing conditions. I couldn't confirm this until I got home and updated the channel to look around for myself.
The easiest constellation to recognize is probably Orion, so I looked for that one first. I vaguely recalled that Orion is a winter constellation which meant that I should probably look at the opposite side of the globe to find it in the background (at night). After a bit of shuffling around, I found it:
I noticed that the stars are indeed real star positions, relative magnitude, and even color! The top left star in Orion, Betelgeuse, is a red supergiant and even appears slightly red on screen.
The next obvious constellation to look for was the Big Dipper (Ursa Major):
It seems to be accurately positioned as well, which means that someone at Nintendo put in a fine bit of extra effort to include this subtle little bonus.


-- josef

Screens Via Comments

[shadowprophet]

I wanted to comment about that the other day. But it just sounded too crazy, even coming from me lol. suppose my first instinct was right on the money this time lol

[VampDude]

I wanted to comment about that the other day. But it just sounded too crazy, even coming from me lol. suppose my first instinct was right on the money this time lol

lmao, I never noticed the stars...

...I just thought that they were randomly places and moved with the globe! lmao