Astronomy API
40
AI ReadinessNon-Ready (F)40/100
Official vendor OpenAPI document · agent-readyData EnrichmentData Transformationbasic7 EndpointsREST
For Agents
Look up celestial body positions, generate moon phase or star chart images, and search astronomy catalogues for a given date and observer location.
Use for: Get the altitude and azimuth of Mars tonight from London, Generate a star chart image centred on Orion for tomorrow evening, Find when Jupiter rises and sets over the next week, Retrieve the current moon phase image
Not supported: Does not handle weather forecasts, satellite tracking, or telescope control - use for celestial body positions, events, and astronomy imagery only.
The Astronomy API returns positions of celestial bodies, predicts astronomical events, and renders star charts and moon phase images on demand. It covers the major Solar System bodies and a searchable catalogue of stars and deep space objects, accepting observer location and date inputs to produce horizon-relative coordinates. The Studio endpoints generate ready-to-display PNG charts so applications can drop astronomy visuals into pages without rolling their own ephemeris engine.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Astronomy API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Astronomy API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
1
Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fastronomyapi.com%2Fastronomyapi" | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL "https://jentic.com/install.sh?src=apis&api=%2Fapis%2Fastronomyapi.com%2Fastronomyapi" | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with Astronomy API.
Compute the position of a specific celestial body for an observer's latitude, longitude, and date via /bodies/positions/{body}
List astronomical events such as transits and oppositions for a body over a date range using /bodies/events/{body}
Generate a printable star chart image for a given location and viewing date through POST /studio/star-chart
Render a moon phase image scaled to the requested observation moment via POST /studio/moon-phase
Search the catalogue of stars and deep space objects with /search and a free-text query
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Astronomy API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Sky-Tonight Application
Consumer stargazing apps need to tell users which planets and bright stars are visible from their location right now. The Astronomy API answers this with /bodies/positions, returning altitude, azimuth, and constellation for each Solar System body relative to the observer, so the app can render a 'tonight's sky' summary without bundling its own ephemeris data. Latency is low enough for live mobile use.
Call GET /bodies/positions for latitude 51.5074, longitude -0.1278, on 2026-06-09 21:00 UTC and return the bodies with altitude greater than 10 degrees
Editorial Star Charts
News and educational sites publish weekly stargazing guides with charts. The Studio endpoints generate a star chart PNG for a chosen latitude, longitude, and timestamp, so an editorial CMS can pre-render charts for upcoming meteor showers or eclipses without an in-house astronomy stack. The chart returns as an image URL that can be embedded directly in articles.
POST to /studio/star-chart with latitude 40.7128, longitude -74.0060, observation date 2026-08-12 23:00, and view 'constellation: Perseus' to produce a chart image URL
Moon Phase Widget
Lifestyle and gardening apps display today's moon phase. The /studio/moon-phase endpoint renders the moon's illuminated fraction at the requested moment as a PNG, so the front end just embeds the returned URL. The same endpoint can be backdated for almanac-style content where a calendar shows the phase for each day of the month.
POST to /studio/moon-phase with date 2026-06-09 to retrieve the current phase image and percentage illuminated
Agent-Driven Astronomy Lookups via Jentic
Through Jentic, an AI agent answering an astronomy question searches by intent ('where is Mars tonight') and Jentic returns the matching /bodies/positions operation with its observer-location schema. Basic auth credentials are held in your Jentic One instance, so the agent can call the API without seeing the application secret. This makes ad-hoc astronomy queries answerable inside any LLM-driven chat or workflow.
Use Jentic to search 'find Mars position tonight from my location', load the GET /bodies/positions/{body} schema, and execute with body='mars' and the user's coordinates
Key Endpoints
7 endpoints — the astronomy api returns positions of celestial bodies, predicts astronomical events, and renders star charts and moon phase images on demand.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
GET
/bodies
List all supported celestial bodies
GET
/bodies/positions
Get positions for all bodies for an observer
GET
/bodies/positions/{body}
Get position of a specific body
GET
/bodies/events/{body}
Get events such as rise and set times for a body
POST
/studio/star-chart
Generate a star chart image
POST
/studio/moon-phase
Generate a moon phase image
GET
/search
Search stars and deep space objects
GET
/bodies
List all supported celestial bodies
GET
/bodies/positions
Get positions for all bodies for an observer
GET
/bodies/positions/{body}
Get position of a specific body
GET
/bodies/events/{body}
Get events such as rise and set times for a body
POST
/studio/star-chart
Generate a star chart image
POST
/studio/moon-phase
Generate a moon phase image
GET
/search
Search stars and deep space objects
Jentic AI Readiness Score
This API is usable in Jentic One now. Its AI-readiness score against Jentic's framework shows where it stands today and where improvements would make it even easier for agents to use.
A
Astronomy API
- Non-Ready (F)40/100
80
Foundational Compliance63
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility46
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience94
Agent Usability10
Security100
AI DiscoverabilityPowered by JenticScoring Framework 1.0.0 | Scoring Engine 0.4.0
Show dimension breakdown
80
Foundational Compliance
Base layer of spec validity and structural soundness.
Grade: A-Signals: 4
98%
Lint Results
Aggregated quality score from linter diagnostics, weighted by severity.
100%
Resolution Completeness
Percentage of `$ref` references that resolve successfully.
100%
Specification Validity
Checks whether the API description parses successfully and conforms to its declared specification (e.g., OpenAPI).
21%
Structural Integrity
Structural correctness score based on schema issues using logarithmic dampening.
63
Developer Experience & Jentic Compatibility
Clarity, completeness, and ingestion readiness for developers and tooling.
Grade: B-Signals: 4
0%
Example Density
How richly the API is illustrated with examples.
100%
Example Validity
Percentage of examples that conform to their schemas.
50%
Response Coverage
Percentage of operations with complete response definitions (success, client error, server error).
100%
Tooling Readiness
Health of API ingestion, bundling, and resolution within Jentic pipelines.
46
AI-Readiness & Agent Experience
Semantic breadth, depth, and agent comprehension for AI systems.
Grade: DSignals: 4
33%
Description Coverage
Coverage of descriptions across API elements.
0%
Error Standardization
Coverage of RFC 9457 Problem Details for error responses.
100%
OperationId Quality
Coverage, uniqueness, and casing consistency of operationIds for AI inference.
50%
Summary Coverage
Coverage of summaries across operations/tags/info.
94
Agent Usability
Functional utility, complexity comfort, and AI orchestration readiness.
Grade: A+Signals: 1
94%
Complexity Comfort
Agent comfort level based on API operational and structural complexity.
10
Security
Trust, risk posture, and security compliance.
Grade: FSignals: 1
10%
Authentication Strength
Average quality of security schemes based on authentication method strength (weakest link for OAuth2).
100
AI Discoverability
Findability, semantic richness, and reasoning readiness.
Grade: A+Signals: 1
100%
Descriptive Richness
Clarity and depth of descriptions across API elements.
Score it yourself
Every API in the directory is allowlisted, so you can re-score it with no key required.
npx @jentic/api-scorecard-cli score <openapi-url>Why Jentic?
What agents get from Jentic-routed access to this vendor.
Setup
Wiring Astronomy API by hand means encoding an application ID and secret as basic auth and passing observer-location parameters for positions and events. Through Jentic you install once, import the Astronomy API from the API Directory, store the credentials once, and your agent calls it while Jentic builds the Authorization header.
Permission scoping
Astronomy API puts the body name in the URL path (/bodies/positions/{body}) for reads, so a rule can pin your agent to position and event reads for one body. You choose the operations it may call, so the star-chart and moon-phase generators are not included unless you add them.
Credential isolation
Your Astronomy API application ID and secret are stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and used to build the basic-auth header at execution time. They never enter the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'find Mars position tonight', and Jentic returns the matching /bodies/positions operation with its observer-location parameters so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using Astronomy API through Jentic.
What authentication does the Astronomy API use?
The Astronomy API uses HTTP Basic Auth, with the application ID as the username and the application secret as the password. Through Jentic, both values are held in your Jentic One instance and injected at call time, so they never appear in the agent's context.
Can I get the current position of a planet with the Astronomy API?
Yes. Call GET /bodies/positions/{body} with the body slug (for example 'mars'), the observer's latitude and longitude, and the date and time. The response returns the body's altitude, azimuth, and apparent constellation for that observer.
What are the rate limits for the Astronomy API?
Astronomy API plans publish per-minute and per-day quotas tied to the application key. The spec does not encode them, so check the dashboard for the active plan and back off on HTTP 429 responses.
How do I generate a star chart image through Jentic?
Search Jentic for 'generate a star chart', load the POST /studio/star-chart schema, and execute with the observer location, observation time, and chart style. Jentic returns the image URL produced by the API so the agent can hand it back to the caller.
Can I search for deep space objects with the Astronomy API?
Yes. The GET /search endpoint accepts a free-text query and returns matching stars and deep space objects from the catalogue, including identifiers that can then be passed back to /bodies/positions or chart generation.
Which celestial bodies does the Astronomy API support?
The API covers the Sun, Moon, and the major Solar System planets via the /bodies endpoint, which lists every supported body slug to use in subsequent position and event calls.
Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the Astronomy API?
Yes. Because your Jentic One instance is self-hosted, your own rules decide which operations and credentials the agent may use. The Astronomy API puts the body name in the URL path for reads (/bodies/positions/{body}), so you can pin the agent to position and event reads for a single body. Since you choose the operations it may call, the POST /studio/star-chart and POST /studio/moon-phase image generators stay out of reach unless you explicitly add them.
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