🌍 node-red-space-station-telescope-observatory-tracker

Live worldmap tracker for multiple space stations (International Space Station (ISS) & Chinese Space Station (CSS)) and space telescopes (Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory) using Node-RED and N2YO API.

This flow lets you visualize—on a single interactive map:

• 🛰 International Space Station (ISS)
• 🛰 Chinese Space Station — Tiangong (CSS)
• 🔭 Hubble Space Telescope
• 🔭 Chandra X-ray Observatory

Each object shows:

• Latitude / Longitude (with bold labels in the popup)
• Altitude in km and miles
• Velocity in km/s and mph (with sensible fallbacks if velocity isn’t returned by the API)
• Direction of travel (degrees + compass label, e.g. “245.3° (SW)”)
• Elevation angle
• “In Earth’s shadow” (Yes / No)
• Local time at the observation timestamp
• Historical tracks drawn via worldmap-tracks

There is also a custom region classifier, so instead of raw lat/lon only, you see friendly descriptions like:

• over Western Europe
• over Northern South America
• over the Caribbean region
• over Southern Africa
• over Southeast Asia
• over the North Pacific Ocean
• over the Arctic region

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🛰 Satellites & Telescopes in this Flow

Object	Type	NORAD ID	Layer Name	Icon Color
International Space Station	Space Station	25544	ISS	Royal Blue
Chinese Space Station (CSS)	Space Station	48274	CSS	Red
Hubble Space Telescope	Telescope (LEO)	20580	Hubble	Gold
Chandra X-ray Observatory	Telescope (HEO)	25867	Chandra	Saffron

🔑 API keys are not included. You must supply your own N2YO API key in the HTTP Request nodes.

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📦 Prerequisites

Before using this flow, you should have:

• A free account at N2YO.com to get:
  • Your observer latitude & longitude
  • Your API key
• A working Node-RED installation
• The WorldMap node:
  • Install via Node-RED Palette: node-red-contrib-web-worldmap

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🛠 Installation & Setup

1. Clone or download this repo:

   git clone https://github.com/TheDyslexicCoder/node-red-space-station-telescope-observatory-tracker.git
   

2. Open Node-RED and go to the editor:

   http://<your-node-red-ip>:1880
   
   
   

3. Import the flow:

• Menu → Import → Clipboard
• Open Space Stations & Telescopes Node-Red Flows.json from this repo
• Copy its contents into the Import dialog
• Click Import

4. Edit the HTTP Request nodes for:

• ISS
• CSS
• Hubble
• Chandra

In each URL, replace the apiKey=... value with your own N2YO API key
(and optionally update the latitude/longitude to match your observer location).

5. Deploy the flow in Node-RED.

6. Open the WorldMap in your browser:

http://:1880/worldmapSpaceStations

You should now see all four objects moving in real time, each with a detailed popup and regional description.

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🧭 Region Classification

Each popup includes an “Approx. region” line that uses latitude and longitude to map the object to a broad, human-friendly area, such as:

• Western / Central / Eastern Europe
• North / Central / South America
• Caribbean
• Northern / Central / Southern Africa
• Western / Central / Eastern / Southern / Southeast Asia
• Australasia / Oceania
• North / South Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Ocean
• Arctic / Southern Ocean

This is intentionally approximate (not city-accurate) but far more readable than raw coordinates alone.

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🔧 Customizing

You can easily modify:

• Update frequency
  • Adjust the Inject node interval (default is ~32 seconds)
• Marker colors & icons
  • Edit each * Attributes function node (iconColor, layer, tooltips, etc.)
• Region logic
  • Modify the regionFromLatLon() function inside each Attributes node
• Track behavior
  • Customize worldmap-tracks depth, smoothing, or layer assignment
• Units
  • Currently displays both metric and US units (km + mi, km/s + mph)

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📚 Background & Previous Version

This repository is the expanded version of my earlier project:

• Original repo (ISS + CSS only):
  https://github.com/TheDyslexicCoder/node-red-space-station-worldmap

The original project focused on tracking only two space stations.

This upgraded version adds:

• Two major space telescopes (Hubble & Chandra)
• Enhanced popups with more scientific data
• Smart regional mapping for better context
• Better formatting, icons, and event handling
• Historical tracks for each spacecraft

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📄 License

This project is open-source.

If using MIT License, create a LICENSE file containing:

MIT License