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  "description": "An annotated desk of the primary data sources, tools, and peer-reviewed research that advanced amateurs and researchers use to plan and study the night sky.",
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    "bodyMd": "## This hub\n\nThis is the advanced desk: the actual data sources, tools and papers behind the site's data, forecasts and claims, for readers who want to go past the summary and pull the numbers themselves. It is organized by the kind of question each source answers best: is a storm coming, when exactly will an eclipse or moonrise happen, how dark is a given spot really, and what has peer-reviewed research established about how skyglow is changing over time.\n\n## Space weather and aurora\n\n**[NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/)** is the US government's operational forecasting center for solar and geomagnetic activity. Its [3-day forecast](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/3-day-forecast) and [aurora viewline tool](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast) give the planetary Kp index and a 30-minute-updated view-probability map, the same underlying data that most aurora-chasing apps repackage. SWPC also issues geomagnetic storm watches days in advance when it detects an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection, which is the lead time serious aurora chasers use to book travel toward the northern US and Canada.\n\n## Eclipses and celestial mechanics\n\n**[NASA Eclipse Website](https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/)**, maintained by Fred Espenak and colleagues, is the reference for eclipse predictions going back and forward centuries, including interactive path maps, local circumstance tables and downloadable Google Earth path files for every solar and lunar eclipse.\n\n**[JPL Horizons](https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/)** is NASA's ephemeris system for computing precise positions, rise/set times and visual magnitudes of the sun, moon, planets, comets and asteroids for any date, location and time span. It is the tool professional astronomers and serious amateurs use when they need exact geometry rather than an approximation, and it accepts custom observer coordinates down to the meter.\n\n## Timing: sun, moon and stars\n\n**[US Naval Observatory (USNO) Astronomical Data Services](https://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/)** publishes the official, authoritative sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, twilight and lunar-phase calculators for any US or Canadian location, along with the annual Astronomical Almanac data that most other timing tools ultimately trace back to. Its [Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day](https://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/RS_OneDay) tool is the quickest way to check exact rise, set and twilight times for a specific date and coordinate before planning a night out.\n\n## Meteor showers and comets\n\n**[International Meteor Organization (IMO)](https://imo.net/)** coordinates global visual and radio meteor observation and publishes the annual [Meteor Shower Calendar](https://imo.net/resources/calendar/) with radiant positions and predicted rates.\n\n**[American Meteor Society (AMS)](https://www.amsmeteors.org/)** runs a real-time fireball reporting system for North America and publishes its own shower calendar and viewing guidance for US and Canadian observers.\n\n**[Minor Planet Center (MPC)](https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/)**, operated under the International Astronomical Union, is the global clearinghouse for tracking, confirming and cataloging newly discovered asteroids and comets, the parent bodies whose debris trails produce most annual meteor showers.\n\n## Light pollution measurement\n\n**[VIIRS / World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness](https://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2022/)**, built from NASA/NOAA VIIRS satellite radiance data, is the standard modern atlas of artificial sky brightness worldwide, the 2022 update to the atlas published in [Falchi et al., \"The New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness,\" *Science Advances* (2016)](https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1600377).\n\n**[lightpollutionmap.info](https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/)** provides an interactive map layer over that same VIIRS satellite data, letting you check estimated sky brightness and Bortle class for any coordinate.\n\n**[Globe at Night](https://globeatnight.org/)**, a citizen-science project coordinated internationally, collects naked-eye star counts from volunteers worldwide to track how skyglow changes over time, filling gaps satellite data alone cannot measure, since satellites see light radiating upward while a person on the ground experiences skyglow scattered sideways and back down. Anyone can submit an observation with a phone or a simple star chart, no equipment required, which is what makes the dataset large enough to spot long-term trends.\n\n## Local observing conditions\n\n**[Clear Sky Chart](https://www.cleardarksky.com/)** (built by Attilla Danko using Allan Rahill's cloud-cover model) is the widely used cloud cover, transparency, seeing and darkness forecast built specifically for astronomers, covering thousands of sites across the US and Canada with a color-coded, hour-by-hour chart rather than a general weather forecast.\n\n## Satellite constellations and the night sky\n\n**[IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky (CPS)](https://cps.iau.org/)** is the International Astronomical Union's dedicated group tracking how large low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations (such as Starlink and similar broadband networks) affect both naked-eye stargazing and professional astronomical observation, publishing recommendations to satellite operators and coordinating the astronomy community's policy response as the number of active satellites keeps growing.\n\n## Peer-reviewed research\n\n- Falchi, F. et al., [\"The New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness,\" *Science Advances*, 2016](https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1600377): the foundational global light-pollution atlas.\n- Kyba, C. et al., [\"Citizen scientists report global rapid reductions in the visibility of stars,\" *Nature Astronomy*, 2023](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02089-0): analysis of over a decade of Globe at Night observations showing skyglow increasing faster than satellite data alone detects.\n\nFor the plain-language version of these same topics, see [/learn](/learn). For where to go and what to watch, see [/places](/places) and [/events](/events)."
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