HN Explorer

Show HN: Astro App (astro.sshh.io)

291 points by sshh12 ↗ HN
I really like Stellarium and SkySafari but I felt like these are primarily geared towards exploring the sky but not so much "here are the long list of things I want to see, when can I see them tonight and where". There's also not really a great option I've found that combines sky object planning + location weather details while still being free so I built this. The UI's heavily inspired by NINAs sky atlas + Robinhood.

Right now you can:

View the altitude chart of objects and 3D view

Create lists of objects of interest

View the annual max/min daily altitude of an object to find the best time of year to view

See live clouds from GOES satellite view + weekly night-centric forecast

68 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 173 ms ] thread
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
causal
Looks like the only way to use it is giving location permission? Was excited to try it but probably won't until there is a postal code option.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
nsriv
The very next screen after the modal allows you to change your location or use device location, upon which the Chrome permissions modal fires.
sshh12
Yup! Totally understand people might not want to share their location, so if you "skip" I just put you in LA.
pvg
I just put you in LA.

That should probably be 'I just put you in LA and only make the moon visible'

sshh12
Haha yeah you are stuck in Bortle 9 until you fixed it
modeless
IP geolocation works surprisingly well for most people. It'll be a better default than any fixed location.
causal
Yeah my mistake, didn't see the skip button.
nlunbeck
Looks incredible! Shows the value of a good onboarding -- really had me excited to see everything the app had to offer
sshh12
Thanks! This is the first time I invested in building any sort of onboarding seems like it's definitely changed reception
abroadwin
Can't get past the location setup. I click "use device location", authorize it in the browser, click save, and nothing happens.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
richrichardsson
Same. Google Chrome, macOS Sonoma.
sshh12
Sorry y'all, it's the hug of death right now. Way underestimated the traffic this would get.
ChrisArchitect
Fun stuff.

Maybe work words like "sky" "explorer" etc into the title tho..... This being HN I thought maybe this had something to do with https://astro.build/

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
pkage
Looks great! This is super cool. Where do you source your information for object locations?
sshh12
Thanks! When people search for objects, I import the data from SIMBAD Astronomical Database. Also just a lot of manual bootstrapping.
samstave
How about an alert for when [thing] is going to be above your house?
modeless
My site has this but only for satellites. https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ For OP I'd suggest doing calendar events for notifications rather than Web Push. Web Push is very difficult to set up, users are understandably suspicious of it, and it doesn't guarantee timely delivery on Android devices. Calendar events work well on mobile and don't require any permissions.
samstave
Please tell me about your ~~home world Usal~~ reason to track things above you?
jsf01
My current setup is Stellarium + Clear Outside + windy.app and with that you really do need to know ahead of time which objects are visible for your particular location at that time of year or spend a while browsing. Your app looks amazing for my main use cases, but still lacks some information that I rely on. First, it is useful to know the direction of the cloud coverage throughout the night to be able to compare it with where the object you’re shooting will be. I also like to know the brightness (magnitude) of each object to help with planning. The last thing would be to get a list of recommendations rather than using lists of favorites. “What deep sky object do I not know about that today would be perfect for shooting?” is a question I have only been able to answer well with the ASIAR’s list of suggestions, manually curated calendars online that are not tuned to my location, or social media. It seems like you might have all the data to do a better job than all of those options in answering that question. Super cool app! Excited to see where it goes.
sshh12
These are great ideas for me to add! - know the direction of the cloud coverage throughout the night to be able to compare it with where the object you’re shooting will be - I also like to know the brightness (magnitude) of each object to help with planning - The last thing would be to get a list of recommendations rather than using lists of favorites. “What deep sky object do I not know about that today would be perfect for shooting?”
nullhole
Looks nice!

Where does the weather forecast data come from? I've used Clear Sky Charts (https://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/) in the past.

Edit: scratch this question, it was addressed below: Also, is there a way to manually enter lat/lon/elevation? I poked around but it seems to want device location.

endigma
Should disambiguate from https://astro.build/ and various other name collissions in your title somehow, maybe "Astro App | Explore the Night Sky" ?

Also the "Identifiers" section and some other things have extremely low contrast text, 2.35:1 instead of the recommended 4.5:1 for body-size text. You can check on issues like this using the accessibility tab in Firefox or Lighthouse in Chrome.

sshh12
Good call!
endigma
I also added a bit about accessible text contrast
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
jcurbo
I just want to pour one out for CalSky, that was a great page for setting up custom trackers for lots of astronomical things. It was very old school web too (for better or worse).
solardev
Hey OP (or a mod?), can we consider editing the title to say "Astronomy App" instead of "Astro App?"

I accidentally skipped this at first because I thought it was just somebody's personal page built in the Astro JS framework: https://astro.build/

dandigangi
Heh, thought the same thing when I popped it open.
sshh12
Am I able to change the name? Thought that was mod only
cglong
Pretty sure OP can change the name for a limited time. That's probably expired by now unfortunately
pimlottc
Fastest way is to use the contact us link at the bottom of the page
jcoder
But the app is literally called “Astro App”
solardev
That's gonna be hard to find on SEO :/
guptarohit
This. At first glance from title of this submission I thought it's an astrology app.
sdwrj
I almost did the exact same
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
pvg
HN titles don't need to be completely unambiguous or self-explanatory, it's ok to have to click on a thing to figure out what it is.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

solardev
It's not a matter of blindly following the rules, just that a homebrewed astronomy app is a lot more interesting than yet another implementation of yet another JS framework. The ambiguity is doing a disservice to the cool thing the OP actually built, and I think this thread deserves more attention.
pvg
The point of these mod comments is not that they are 'rules', it's that a bit of ambiguity is good for curiosity. The thread itself has about as much attention as HN can give a post:

https://hnrankings.info/39591529/

solardev
It's an interesting point... that ambiguous titles can help spark curiosity and lure people in.

I wonder, has that ever been tested/looked at somewhat scientifically?

pvg
No idea (it's hard for me to imagine how to even design such an experiment but I'm no curiosity scientist) although HN's weird title rules are probably the thing (out of the various weird rules) that the HN hive mind has expended the most thinker bees on. So if nothing else, they're HN-tested!
edmundsauto
This could be a cool application in VR - have you thought about publishing a version for AVP or Quest?
sshh12
Nope but that could be interesting
extraduder_ire
Don't know if AVP has webxr support, but that'd be a good way to get it onto quest and other existing VR devices quickly. There's already some demos out there focusing on putting three.js views into VR.

Using passthrough to align the direction and angle would be cool too, by lining up the moon/horizon through the camera or something.

BillSaysThis
Maybe just my aging eyes but the warning to HN visitors of grey text on black background is HIGHLY unreadable.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
stevage
Needs to automatically detect timezone.
sshh12
It does if you select use device location
bbor
Your app is awesome and I'm looking forward to playing with it when it's not being hugged to death :). That said I would definitely suggest reading some design books or taking an online class - the app is obviously beautiful but IMO violates some traditional design principles, namely consistency issues like "buttons should be rounded and CTA-colored and small, all clickable elements should share a motif", etc. I recommend Donald Norman, specifically.

Again, awesome app. Windy.app blew me away (no pun intended), and I think this is a logical next step.

Arech
Cool...probably... But am I the only one who can't read gray text on a gray background? I can't get past it...