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Free Plugin by stleary v1.9.1

The Stars at Night

Stars-at-night displays astronomical data for a specified location and date.

The Stars at Night

The facts

Rating
5★ from 3
Active installs
100+
Price
Free
Last updated
11 Sep 2021
Added
Dec 2016
Requires WP
4.6
Tested up to
WP 5.8.15
Requires PHP
7.0
Downloads
6,930

Our analysis

AI-assisted

The Stars at Night is a WordPress plugin designed for amateur astronomers. It provides data about celestial events based on user-defined location and date parameters through shortcodes. Users can specify latitude, longitude, timezone, and other optional parameters to generate tables displaying information such as sunrise, sunset, moon phases, and visibility of planets and the International Space Station (ISS).

This plugin is suitable for those who wish to track astronomical events in their specific location. It is particularly useful for hobbyists and educators interested in astronomy, offering a straightforward way to access relevant data without needing extensive technical knowledge.

Best for: Amateur astronomers and educators interested in celestial events.

What it does well

  • ✓Free to use from the WordPress.org directory
  • ✓Displays detailed astronomical data in HTML tables
  • ✓Customisable with various shortcode parameters

Where it falls short

  • •Limited to amateur astronomers; may not meet professional needs
  • •Requires user input for location and date parameters
  • •Directory score indicates potential areas for improvement

Verdict

The Stars at Night provides a useful tool for those interested in astronomy, though it may have limitations for more advanced users.

From the developer

stleary's own description of The Stars at Night, lightly tidied.

This plugin displays data of interest to amateur astronomers. It is calculated from user-provided location and date information.
The plugin is called from a WordPress shortcode, and the parameters are specified in the shortcode. The following parameters are
required, in any order:

  • lat : Lattitude of location in fractional degrees (e.g. 30.8910). Positive is north, negative is south of equator
  • long : Longitude of location in fractional degrees (e.g.-98.4265). Positive is east, negative is west of the UTC line
  • timezone : Timezone name, must be value recognized by PHP. See http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php

These parameters are optional:

  • name : The name of the location to be calculated
  • days : The number of days of data to display. Must be a value from 1 to 10. Defaults to 3 if not specified.

Shortcode Examples:

  • stars-at-night name=Chennai lat=13.08 long=80.26 timezone=Asia/Kolkata days=1
  • stars-at-night name=”COE Observing Field” lat=30.891 long=-97.4265 timezone=America/Chicago days=10

You can also display the individual data tables via more specific shortcodes:

  • stars-at-night-sun-moon name=”Mount Kilimanjaro” lat=-2.55 long=37.55 timezone=Africa/Nairobi
  • stars-at-night-planets name=”Ushuaia” lat=-54.8 long=-68.33 timezone=America/Argentina/Ushuaia
  • stars-at-night-iss name=”Mount Burnett Observatory” lat=-37.9 long=145.4 timezone=Australia/Melbourne days=7

The output consists of simple HTML tables:

  • Sun/Moon table: The times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, morning astronomical twilight, and evening astronomical twilight for the specified days (max 10 days).
  • Planets table: The times and visibility for the planets, for the current day.
  • ISS table: The times and directions for visible ISS passes over the specified days (max 10 days).
  • (REMOVED) Iridium flares table: The times and directions for visible Iridium flares over the specified days (max 7 days).

You can view the plugin in action here: http://johnjleary.com/notforlong

Credits and Acknowledgements:

  • Lunar images by Dan Morgan. Used with permission. http://DanMorgan.org.
  • WordPress framework and sunrise/sunset algorithm: https://github.com/bengreeley/sunrisesunset
  • Moonrise and Moonset class (with a correction for timezone): http://dxprog.com/entry/calculate-moon-rise-and-set-in-php
  • Moon phase class: https://github.com/solarissmoke/php-moon-phase
  • Planetary, ISS and Iridium Flare tables are obtained by sending GET requests to: http://heavens-above.com (HTTP API used with permission)
  • Per-table shortcodes implemented by Peter Lieverdink

Contributors

stleary
Peter Lieverdink

Read the full description on the official page →

Tagged as

feature Shortcodes
topic Location Locations Stars Https Table Tables Http Time