The real estate market may not be as strong as it was a year ago, but in terms of web development, there’ll be none of that. Web tech, design and UI continues to push the capabilities of data view layers to new heights. Case in point, Trulia’s new “Snapshot,” a cool new bit of eye candy that gives users the ability to get results via sliders (with a slick motion touch on the thumbnail scroll). Another nice, albeit not particularly useful touch is that you drag photos out of the way to view what’s behind, then snapping back into place via a rubber band effect.

Although fun, it’s not very practical from a usability POV. I’d rather “fly through” or have the option to have the image automatically move out of the way if I mouse into an area. All in all, a solid visual take on an everyday application. At least Trulia is showing that they clearly “get it.”

via TechCrunch

One of the top designers working today, Peter Reid always delivers great visuals to peruse, whether it be his graphic design or photography. I’ve been following him since I worked along side on a project for AOL a few years back and have been keen on checking in from time to time to get some inspiration.

He’s been offline for quite awhile, but has returned with some fresh new eye candy to absorb. Head on over to his portfolio, Our Common, and be transfixed.

My friend and former cohort Max McNeil, pinged me these close-up shots of the lunar eclipse from last night. According to his Flickr set, he’s using a Meade LX90 and taking photos by holding his small digital camera up to the 2″ eye piece.

It always amazes me that the backyard astronomer can easily now do what was not very long ago only in the hands of big-budget labs and universities.

The University of Arizona’s HiRISE program showcases ultra high-resolution photography, consisting of a “0.5 meter reflecting telescope, the largest of any deep space mission, which allows it to take pictures with resolutions up to 0.3 m resolving objects about a meter across, or the size of a beachball.”

According to a description, “launched in August of 2005, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) is flying onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission. HiRISE will investigate deposits and landforms resulting from geologic and climatic processes and assist in the evaluation of candidate landing sites. By combining very high resolution and signal-to-noise ratio with a large swath width, it is possible to image on a variety of scales down to 1 meter, a scale currently afforded only in glimpses by landers. HiRISE will offer such views over any selected region of Mars, providing a bridge between orbital remote sensing and landed missions. Stereo image pairs will be acquired over the highest-priority locations with a vertical precision of better than 25 cm per pixel.”

If you’re not already familiar with it, go visit the Astronomy Picture of the Day and then come back to visit it again every day. It’s worth a stop just for the imagery, if not also for the accompanying text description, which gives insight into whatever went on to capture the scene. I’ve been visiting every day for as long as I can remember.

Run by NASA’s Goddard Flight Center and Michigan Tech University, it has been in operation since 1995.