Meet our new Astronomy APIs
You may notice a new link in the header on this site: API.
As part of expanding the functionality of our apps over the past year, we've been building out a set of web services to deliver a variety of astronomical and geospatial data.
These services are already powering a number of capabilities in The Photographier's Ephemeris - in particular the solar eclipse functionality (eclipse paths, local circumstances, and more). We've decided to make these services available to 3rd party app and website developers and have launched a public beta on a new website: radiantdrift.com.
If astronomy is not your core business, but you need to include some astronomical data to your app or website, implementing algorithms or astronomical libraries can be confusing and time consuming. This is where radiantdrift.com can help.
For Developers and Web Site Owners
If you're a developer and need data for your app or site, you can try our simple to use web services to request JSON, GeoJSON or SVG data (depending on the query). If you're a website owner and would like to include some astronomy widgets on our site, that's even easier: we've started with two widgets specifically for solar eclipses: an eclipse path map widget and a visually arresting eclipse simulator.
We already have details Sun and Moon data avaialble, in addition to solar eclipses and some eclipse-related lunar data that you probably won't find in any other web service.
Our implementations have been around a long time - we started in 2008 - and are battle tested by thousands of photographers everyday around the world.
You can sign up for free and get started today. We've made a good start on documentation and will be expanding it further over the coming weeks.
We'd love to get your feedback on the web services - you can drop us line at support@radiantdrift.com.
PS. "what's radiant drift", you ask? It's the apparent motion of the radiant point of a meteor shower across the celestial sphere over time. We think it makes for a decent name for the new service!