Astronomy Dashboard

This is a single-page HTML application designed to provide astronomy enthusiasts with a lightweight, responsive, and offline-capable dashboard.

Features

• Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): Displays the daily astronomy image, title, and description from NASA's APOD API.
• International Space Station (ISS) Location: Shows the real-time latitude and longitude of the ISS.
• Moon Phase: Calculates and displays the current moon phase.
• User Location: Detects user's geographical coordinates (with fallback for manual input).
• Upcoming Celestial Events: Dynamically fetches and displays notable celestial events (Solar Flares, Coronal Mass Ejections).
• Near Earth Objects (NEOs): Displays information about potentially hazardous Near Earth Objects.
• Mars Rover Photos Integration: Added a new section and JavaScript functionality to fetch and display the latest photos from NASA's Mars Rovers (Curiosity), with a sliding feature for user interactivity (left/right arrow navigation and single image preview).
• NASA Image and Video Library Search: Allows users to search and view images and videos from NASA's extensive library.
• Interactive Star Chart: Displays an interactive star chart using d3-celestial based on user's location, showing stars, constellations, and other celestial objects.
• Favorites: Allows users to save their favorite APOD images to local storage and view them in a collapsible list.
• Dark Mode: Defaults to dark mode with the option to toggle to light mode, with the preference saved locally.
• Offline Support: Caches APOD and ISS data for offline viewing.
• Social Sharing: Enables sharing of APOD images via Web Share API or by copying the URL.
• Responsive UI: Adapts to various screen sizes (mobile, tablet, desktop).

Development Log

For a detailed log of development progress, see development_log.md.

How to Use

To run this application, simply open the index.html file in your web browser.

API Usage

This dashboard utilizes the following public APIs:

• NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) API: For daily astronomy images.
• Open-Notify ISS Location API: For real-time International Space Station coordinates.

Development Notes

• All HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are contained within a single index.html file for simplicity and portability.
• API keys are embedded directly in the index.html file. For production environments, it is highly recommended to manage API keys more securely (e.g., via backend services or environment variables).

Suggested Improvements and Future Enhancements

• Modularize the Codebase: Break the monolithic index.html file into dedicated HTML, CSS, and JavaScript bundles or migrate to a lightweight build tool (e.g., Vite) for better maintainability and caching.
• Harden API Interactions: Introduce a small proxy backend or serverless functions to secure API keys, add caching, and handle rate limiting gracefully.
• Progressive Web App (PWA) Support: Add a web app manifest and service worker with smarter caching strategies so the dashboard can be installed and used reliably offline.
• Accessibility Enhancements: Audit color contrast, provide ARIA labels for dynamic content, and ensure keyboard navigation works across all interactive components.
• User Personalization: Allow users to configure default data sources (e.g., favorite rover, preferred events) and persist preferences via local storage or synced storage.
• Observation Planner: Offer a planner that combines local weather forecasts, light pollution data, and upcoming events to help users schedule viewing sessions.
• Community Sharing: Enable authenticated users to share curated observing lists or favorite APOD collections with friends via generated links.
• Educational Mode: Add contextual tooltips, glossary entries, and guided tours to help newcomers understand astronomical terms and visualizations.

Contributing

Feel free to fork this repository and contribute to its development.