Explore the night sky from any place, any moment in time.
SkyVault is an interactive web app that renders an accurate night sky for any date, time, and location on Earth. Star positions come from ESA Gaia DR3, planet positions from NASA JPL DE421, constellations from the IAU, enrichment data from NASA Exoplanet Archive and CDS SIMBAD, and the photo-realistic Milky Way backdrop is the ESO/S. Brunier GigaGalaxy Zoom panorama (eso0932a). Every data point is attributed — no faked values, no approximations.
Built with React, Vite, Canvas 2D + WebGL, FastAPI, and Astropy.
✅ Phase 1 — Foundation ✅ Phase 2a — Frontend Foundation ✅ Phase 2b — 2D Sky Chart (Canvas 2D) 🚧 Phase 2c — Visual Polish + Milky Way Backdrop (in progress)
See SKYVAULT_ROADMAP.md for the full phase breakdown.
SkyVault uses real, attributed institutional data sources. No values are faked or approximated.
| Source | Provides | Institution | License |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gaia DR3 | Star positions, magnitudes, parallax, BP-RP color | ESA | CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO |
| JPL DE421 ephemeris | Sun, Moon, Mercury–Neptune positions | NASA JPL | Public domain (US Gov) |
| IAU constellations | Official 88 constellations + stick figures (Phase 3) | IAU | Public domain |
| NASA Exoplanet Archive | Confirmed exoplanets and host stars (Phase 3) | NASA / IPAC | Public domain |
| CDS SIMBAD | Canonical object metadata (Phase 3) | CDS Strasbourg | Free for academic / non-commercial use |
| ESO/S. Brunier panorama (eso0932a) | All-sky Milky Way backdrop image (galactic equirectangular, 4000×2000) | ESO / Serge Brunier (GigaGalaxy Zoom Project) | CC BY 4.0 |
The Milky Way panorama is © ESO/S. Brunier from the GigaGalaxy Zoom Project,
licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
For the original image and project notes, see:
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0932a/. Attribution rules in
CLAUDE.md guardrail #11.
skyvault/
├── client/ # React + Vite + Canvas 2D + WebGL frontend
├── server/ # FastAPI + Astropy backend
└── ...
Phase 1 setup instructions will land here as the backend scaffold comes up. For now, see CLAUDE.md for the full project context and SKYVAULT_ROADMAP.md for the plan.
Andrew Robalino Garcia — CS @ FIU. Building toward the space industry via CS.