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No.167 · Heroes

Local Sky Hero

A studio hero set on a sea horizon where the sky is the visitor's own: its colour and the sun or moon follow their local time, and the horizon says what time it is at the studio and whether anyone's in.

The prompt

Written for the variant you picked above: Your time

Build a hero for a small studio, set on a sea horizon. The sky's three gradient stops (top, middle, low) and the sea colour come from a table of hand-picked palettes through the day — night, before dawn, dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, golden hour, blue hour — mixed by the visitor's local hour. A sun crosses 6:00–18:00 on a sine arc (x from 8% to 92%, height from the horizon), warming toward orange as it nears the horizon; the rest of the day a smaller moon with a shaded side takes the arc, and faint stars fade in. The colours and the light's position are registered @property values, so on load the sky settles from blue hour into the visitor's real sky over 2.4s while the light rises from below the horizon. It re-reads the clock every 30 seconds, unless a fixed hour is passed with the at prop. The text ink flips between dark and light with the palette. On the horizon line, in small mono caps: the time at the studio ('Muscat 3:12 pm'), how far apart you are ('2 hours ahead of you'), and whether the studio is open, computed from its time zone, opening hours and working days (Sunday–Thursday for Oman) — 'In the studio now' with a green dot, or 'Back at 9:00 their time'. Below, a band of sea with a shimmering reflection under the light. A serif headline, a short paragraph and two buttons that take the sky's ink sit low in the sky. Selected variant — Your time: Your time: no at prop — the sky follows the visitor's real local hour and updates every 30 seconds.

Notes

Interaction
None needed; the sky reads the visitor's clock. The buttons are ordinary links.
Motion
Sky colours and the light's position transition 2.4s on load and on each clock update; the reflection shimmers slowly.
Accessibility
The sky, light and sea are decorative and aria-hidden. The status line is real text. Ink colours flip with the palette so text stays readable at every hour; check your own headline against the dawn and dusk palettes. Reduced motion removes the settle and the shimmer.
Responsive
Headline and the light scale with the container; the horizon status wraps and left-aligns under 560px.

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