Introduction to Arcsecond API

Arcsecond.io offers a powerful API to retrieve astronomical objects and data from various sources. In this blog post, we will explore the different APIs that can be queried and the JavaScript code snippets required to retrieve and display the data.

Getting Started

To start using the Arcsecond API, you first need to create an account on their website. Once you are signed up, you can get your API key from the Account page.

API Calls

The Arcsecond API supports the following calls:

1. Retrieve astronomical objects:

This API allows you to search and retrieve information about objects such as planets, stars and galaxies.

const fetch = require('node-fetch');

fetch('https://api.arcsecond.io/search?q=nebula&limit=10', {
  headers: {
    'Authorization': 'Token your_api_key'
  }
})
.then(res => res.json())
.then(data => console.log(data))
.catch(err => console.log(err));

2. Retrieving details of an object:

This API call retrieves the details of a specific object.

const fetch = require('node-fetch');

fetch('https://api.arcsecond.io/objects/messier', {
  headers: {
    'Authorization': 'Token your_api_key'
  }
})
.then(res => res.json())
.then(data => console.log(data))
.catch(err => console.log(err));

3. Retrieving images:

The API also offers images of celestial objects captured by various telescopes.

const fetch = require('node-fetch');

fetch('https://api.arcsecond.io/images?object=2mass&instrument=2mass-allsky&limit=3', {
  headers: {
    'Authorization': 'Token your_api_key'
  }
})
.then(res => res.json())
.then(data => console.log(data))
.catch(err => console.log(err));

4. Retrieving object ephemerides:

This API call retrieves the ephemerides (coordinates) of an object at a specified time.

const fetch = require('node-fetch');

fetch('https://api.arcsecond.io/ephemerides?object=moon&epoch_start=2019-01-01&epoch_end=2019-01-02', {
  headers: {
    'Authorization': 'Token your_api_key'
  }
})
.then(res => res.json())
.then(data => console.log(data))
.catch(err => console.log(err));

Conclusion

In this blog post, we explored the different APIs that can be queried from the Arcsecond.io website. We also provided code snippets in JavaScript for each of the API calls. By using the Arcsecond API, developers can easily retrieve astronomical objects and data from various sources for their projects.