The goal of astropic is to connect R to the NASA APOD
API. The APOD API supports one image
at a time. In order to supply more than that, this package also includes
creating time ranges (of less than 2000 days at a time) and some
historical data in tibble format.
Thanks to Michael W. Kearney, author of rtweet, for having a robust package based on connecting to an API. I didn’t know much about APIs when I started this project and looking at his source code helped a ton!
Credit to the APOD API contributors for all of their work in making the API, and the recent re-org.
You can install the development version from GitHub with:
# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("eringrand/astropic")To start, you’ll need a NASA API key. If you do not have one, you can get one here. Once you put in your information, a key will be emailed to you.
Save this to your environment as NASA_KEY. e.g
Sys.setenv(NASA_KEY = "YOURKEYHERE").
The query parameters are described on the APOD API Github page as such…
dateA string in YYYY-MM-DD format indicating the date of the APOD image (example: 2014-11-03). Defaults to today’s date. Must be after 1995-06-16, the first day an APOD picture was posted. There are no images for tomorrow available through this API.concept_tagsA Boolean True|False indicating whether concept tags should be returned with the rest of the response. The concept tags are not necessarily included in the explanation, but rather derived from common search tags that are associated with the description text. (Better than just pure text search.) Defaults to False.hdA Boolean True|False parameter indicating whether or not high-resolution images should be returned. This is present for legacy purposes, it is always ignored by the service and high-resolution urls are returned regardless.countA positive integer, no greater than 100. If this is specified then count randomly chosen images will be returned in a JSON array. Cannot be used in conjunction with date orstart_dateandend_date.start_dateA string in YYYY-MM-DD format indicating the start of a date range. All images in the range fromstart_dateto end_date will be returned in a JSON array. Cannot be used with date.end_dateA string in YYYY-MM-DD format indicating that end of a date range. Ifstart_dateis specified without anend_datethenend_datedefaults to the current date. thumbs A Boolean parameter True|False indicating whether the API should return a thumbnail image URL for video files. If set to True, the API returns URL of video thumbnail. If an APOD is not a video, this parameter is ignored.
This is a basic example to retrieve APOD data.
dateDate of image. Included in response because of default values.explanationThe supplied text explanation of the image.hdurlThe URL for any high-resolution image for that day. Will be omitted in the response IF it does not exist originally at APOD.media_typeThe type of media (data) returned. May either be ‘image’ or ‘video’ depending on content.service_versionThe service version used.titleThe title of the image.urlThe URL of the APOD image or video of the day.copyrightThe name of the copyright holder.
library(astropic)
get_apod() # no inputs will get today's image
#> # A tibble: 1 × 7
#> date explanation hdurl media_type service_version title url
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 2024-07-24 Our Moon doesn't real… http… image v1 Exag… http…You can also supply a start and end date to get a range of image results back.
get_apod(query = list(start_date = "2018-04-01", end_date = "2018-04-03"))
#> # A tibble: 3 × 8
#> copyright date explanation hdurl media_type service_version title url
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 "\nFernando Ca… 2018… I love you… http… image v1 I Br… http…
#> 2 <NA> 2018… While crui… http… image v1 Moon… http…
#> 3 "\nSergei Maku… 2018… You may ha… http… image v1 The … http…get_apod(query = list(count = 5))
#> # A tibble: 5 × 8
#> copyright date explanation hdurl media_type service_version title url
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 "\nDamian Peac… 2015… "Astronome… http… image v1 NGC … http…
#> 2 <NA> 1997… "This pict… http… image v1 Look… http…
#> 3 "\nPeter Ward\… 2007… "What's ha… http… image v1 Warp… http…
#> 4 "Tunç Tezel" 2014… "That brig… http… image v1 Mars… http…
#> 5 <NA> 1995… "The Crab … http… image v1 Gamm… http…With a little magick you can also save the APOD image to your computer
for use later. This is a demonstration of a picture in APOD I helped to
create.
library(magick)
library(here)
library(dplyr)
save_image <- function(url){
image <- try(magick::image_read(url), silent = FALSE)
image_name <- gsub(".*/([^/]+$)", '\\1', m31$hdurl)
image_loc <- here::here("man/figures/README", image_name)
if(class(image)[1] != "try-error"){
image %>%
magick::image_write(image_loc)
}
return(image)
}
m31 <- get_apod(query = list(date = "2009-09-17")) # only providing a start date will give the image just for that day
dplyr::pull(m31, explanation)
#> [1] "Taken by a telescope onboard NASA's Swift satellite, this stunning vista represents the highest resolution image ever made of the Andromeda Galaxy (aka M31) - at ultraviolet wavelengths. The mosaic is composed of 330 individual images covering a region 200,000 light-years wide. It shows about 20,000 sources, dominated by hot, young stars and dense star clusters that radiate strongly in energetic ultraviolet light. Of course, the Andromeda Galaxy is the closest large spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way, at a distance of some 2.5 million light-years. To compare this gorgeous island universe's appearance in optical light with its ultraviolet portrait, just slide your cursor over the image."save_image(m31$hdurl)
Come find me on twitter @astroeringand
Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.