APOD WALLPAPER ✨ NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day as your desktop picture, from your Mac's menu bar. A new picture every day, on every display and every desktop (Space), with NASA's explanation of what you're looking at one click away. Or pick Live Earth, the latest satellite picture of the Earth, or Night Sky, a star chart of the sky over your city tonight. WHAT'S IN THIS FOLDER APOD Wallpaper.app the app Install APOD Wallpaper.command installs it (run this) Read Me.txt this file BEFORE YOU START • Any Mac (Apple Silicon or Intel) running macOS 14 or later. • An internet connection. • Your current desktop picture will be replaced. If you want it back later, note which one it is first (System Settings → Wallpaper). INSTALL 1. Double-click "Install APOD Wallpaper.command". If macOS says it can't be opened ("Apple could not verify…"): click Done, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down and click "Open Anyway", then double-click the installer again. Or open Terminal, type bash followed by a space, drag "Install APOD Wallpaper.command" into the Terminal window, and press Return. 2. The installer copies APOD Wallpaper into Applications and opens it. 3. Look for the sparkles in the menu bar, on a small purple square. Today's picture appears on your desktop within a few seconds. macOS also tells you a login item was added: that is APOD Wallpaper starting itself when you log in. Prefer to do it by hand? Drag APOD Wallpaper into Applications and open it. The first time, macOS blocks it: go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click "Open Anyway". USING APOD WALLPAPER • Pick the wallpaper in the sparkles menu: Astronomy Picture of the Day A new picture every day at 07:00 UTC (2 pm in Thailand and Vietnam), a few hours after NASA posts it. If your Mac is off or asleep then, it updates as soon as it's back. Live Earth The whole Earth as a weather satellite sees it, updated every 20 minutes: real colour by day, city lights at night. It uses the satellite nearest you, or pick another under Live Earth Satellite. It downloads up to about 7 MB an hour, and waits while your network is set to Low Data Mode. Night Sky A star chart of the whole sky over your city (the one your Mac's time zone is named after): the stars and constellations, the planets, and the Moon in its real phase. Hold it over your head: north is at the top and east on the left. After dark it shows the sky now; in the daytime, tonight's sky. Nothing is downloaded. Solid Color A plain colour. Choose Color… picks it. • Every display gets the picture straight away, including one you plug in or switch from mirroring to extended. Other desktops (Spaces) get it the first time you switch to them. • Also in the sparkles menu: Info… today's APOD title, credit and NASA's explanation, with a link to its page on the APOD website Update Now fetch or draw the newest picture right away Launch at Login on from the start, so the updates keep happening Colour Icon in the Menu Bar untick it for black-and-white sparkles like the menu bar's other icons With Night Sky on, the top of the menu also says what phase the Moon is in, when it rises or sets, and which planets are up. GOOD TO KNOW • APOD pictures come from NASA's APOD site (science.nasa.gov/apod). Many are by independent photographers and remain their copyright. • Live Earth pictures are CIRA's GeoColor images from RAMMB/CIRA SLIDER (Colorado State University), taken by Himawari-9 (JMA), GOES (NOAA) and Meteosat (EUMETSAT). Each one is credited in its corner. • Night Sky's stars and constellation figures come from d3-celestial by Olaf Frohn (BSD licence; the full notice is below). • Only the current picture is kept on your Mac. On days when APOD is a video, you get a still from it. • To update: unzip a newer copy and run its installer. It replaces the old one and keeps your settings. • To uninstall: untick Launch at Login in the sparkles menu, choose Quit APOD Wallpaper, then drag APOD Wallpaper from Applications to the Trash and pick a new desktop picture in System Settings → Wallpaper. • APOD Wallpaper is free and open source. It isn't from the App Store and isn't notarized by Apple, which is why macOS asks you to confirm it the first time. D3-CELESTIAL LICENCE (for Night Sky's star data) Copyright (c) 2015, Olaf Frohn All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.