because it's mapped the convention of scrolling down on a web page and mapped the path of the eclipse onto that and because you don't always need north to point up just like you don't always need a compass rose or a scale bar.

There is a minimap in the upper right corner to help you orient yourself.

the minimap is oriented differently (north is up) whereas the main map view is not; that just contributes to the spatially confusing presentation in my opninion. maybe a rectangle of the full map fov along the minimap path rather than a circle would help mitigate this, I don't know... it's also following the path of the eclipse backwards, which is also distracting.

the orientation is horrible. why is north up? just no.

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