Sublime Space Bot

A simple bluesky bot to post sublime pictures of our universe. Powers the Sublime Space Bluesky account.

License

This project is licensed under the AGPL-3.0-or-later License. See the LICENSE.md file for details.

Features

• Posts NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day to Bluesky
• Posts NASA EPIC Earth imagery weekly
• Posts NASA SDO solar imagery weekly
• Posts ESA/Hubble archive imagery weekly
• Posts new ESA/Webb Picture of the Month images when they appear
• Posts NSF NOIRLab Image of the Week imagery weekly
• Automatically compresses images to meet Bluesky's size limits
• Supports image APODs and video APODs with Bluesky link cards
• Includes alt text plus a source and credit reply for each post
• Adds #Astronomy and #Space to the main post for discovery

Nasa's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)

The src/post-apod.ts script:

1. fetches the APOD from https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod;
2. downloads the daily image when media_type=image;
3. compresses images below Bluesky's 1 MB limit;
4. publishes image APODs with the image and alt text;
5. publishes video APODs as Bluesky link cards with thumbnails when NASA provides one;
6. replies to the main post with the APOD source and credit.

If the daily APOD is a video, the bot does not re-upload the video file. It links to the original video source and uses NASA's thumbnail when available.

NASA EPIC Earth imagery

The src/post-epic.ts script:

1. fetches the latest natural color Earth images from https://api.nasa.gov/EPIC/api/natural;
2. picks the latest available image;
3. downloads and compresses the image below Bluesky's 1 MB limit;
4. publishes the image with a short Earth-focused caption;
5. replies to the main post with NASA EPIC/DSCOVR credit and the source image URL.

NASA SDO solar imagery

The src/post-sdo.ts script:

1. downloads the latest Solar Dynamics Observatory images from https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/latest/;
2. compresses images below Bluesky's 1 MB limit;
3. publishes a multi-image post with complementary solar views;
4. replies to the main post with NASA/SDO/AIA credit and the source URL.

ESA/Hubble archive imagery

The src/post-hubble.ts script:

1. computes the ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week archive ID for the current week;
2. fetches image metadata from https://esahubble.org/images/{imageId}/api/json/;
3. downloads and compresses the image below Bluesky's 1 MB limit;
4. publishes the image with a short Hubble-focused caption;
5. replies to the main post with ESA/Hubble credit and the source URL.

The weekly rotation starts at potw1101a, advances by one archive image per week, and wraps back to the start after potw2552a.

ESA/Webb Picture of the Month

The src/post-webb.ts script:

1. fetches the latest ESA/Webb Picture of the Month from https://esawebb.org/images/potm/json/;
2. fetches image metadata from https://esawebb.org/images/{imageId}/api/json/;
3. skips the run when that imageId has already been posted;
4. downloads and compresses the image below Bluesky's 1 MB limit;
5. publishes the image with a short Webb-focused caption;
6. replies to the main post with ESA/Webb credit and the source URL.

The duplicate guard is stored in .bot-state.json, which is ignored by git.

NSF NOIRLab Image of the Week

The src/post-noirlab.ts script:

1. fetches the latest NSF NOIRLab Image of the Week from https://noirlab.edu/public/images/iotw/feed/;
2. reads the image, title, source, and publication date from the RSS item;
3. skips the run when that image has already been posted;
4. downloads and compresses the image below Bluesky's 1 MB limit;
5. publishes the image with a short NOIRLab-focused caption;
6. replies to the main post with NSF NOIRLab credit and the source URL.

Local setup

Prerequisite: Node.js 24 or later with Corepack enabled.

On your server or local machine, clone this repo and run:

corepack enable
pnpm install
cp .env.example .env

Then create:

• a NASA API key at https://api.nasa.gov/;
• a Bluesky App Password in Settings -> Privacy and Security -> App Passwords.

Fill in .env, then test without posting:

pnpm dry-run:apod
pnpm dry-run:epic
pnpm dry-run:hubble
pnpm dry-run:noirlab
pnpm dry-run:sdo
pnpm dry-run:webb

Publish for real:

pnpm post:apod
pnpm post:epic
pnpm post:hubble
pnpm post:noirlab
pnpm post:sdo
pnpm post:webb

Local cron

Install or update all cron jobs from the repository root:

pnpm install:cron

This preserves unrelated cron entries and replaces existing Sublime Space Bot entries.

All jobs run from the repository directory, retry up to 3 times with 1 hour between attempts, and append logs to bot.log.

Operations

View installed cron jobs:

crontab -l

Follow bot logs:

tail -f bot.log