Astro

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  Satellite Photo of South Korea at night and light pollution

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  Satellite Photo of United States at night and light pollution

Inspiration

All my life I haven't been able to view the starry night sky as much as I wanted to, especially when I used to live in South Korea. Those in my parents and my grandparents shared this trait as well, since South Korea has had quite a lot of light pollution. I also knew that not only was South Korea experiencing this issue, but other countries around the world, too. Thus, I was inspired to build a simple solution where the search for an area with minimal light pollution simple, for those desiring to enjoy a near-perfect night sky, like me.

What it does

Users can hover their mouse over parts of photos of satellite maps taken at night, and an algorithm will calculate an approximate percentage of the amount of stars viewable from that location at night, compared to other areas on the maps. The percentage will be presented to the user as well as the color of the light pollution in that area.

How we built it

I used vanilla HTML, CSS, and JS for the client side, as well as some Node.JS for the server. I also used the Rec. 709 luma coefficients to calculate the expected brightness of the light pollution.

Challenges we ran into

The main challenge was determining how I was going to use the data from the satellite photos to know the visibility of stars from certain areas. Researching how I was going to do this also added onto my inspirations, as most similar services offered similar data assuming prior astronomical knowledge and minimal instructions and information in using such services. Nevertheless, I settled on Rec. 709 luma coefficients out of the handful formula presented to me, since it was noncomplex but also efficient too.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm proud that I've built a simple but efficient approach to a common issue around the world, as well as making it convenient and accessible.

What we learned

I learned some fundamental vanilla frontend development basics, and how they can be used.

What's next for Astro

Adding a better system for the maps, like the usage of some APIs for such, and also a better algorithm for the percentage of visibility. Perhaps the biggest possibility is spreading light pollution awareness with the rest of the world.

Built With

• backend
• css3
• frontend
• html5
• javascript
• node.js