Star-API

Category: Toolkit

Presentation URL: Presentation

Demo: [Demo] (http://youtu.be/LQ0CJmSAUWE?list=UUIuhq9LTleLC-GMdAOvvZcg)

API Endpoint: API

Dependencies

1. Rvm, ruby, bundler
2. Sqlite on development and Postgresql on production
3. ElasticSearch to store search metadata

Setting up the Rails API

You need to clone repo, run

bundle install
rake db:migrate
rake parsers:milkyway:all
rake search:rebuild

The rake parser:milkyway:all rake task fetches the DU data set from http://research.amnh.org/users/abbott/dudata/ and stores it into Postgres.

The rake search:rebuild builds search index for all these data sets.

Features

1. Available resources as REST get api: stars, exo_planets, local_groups, open clusters, constellations
2. Paginated queries
3. Search endpoint at /api/v1/search?q=<search query> to search for all available names and labels
4. Filter queries like /api/v1/stars?min[distl]=10&max[distl]=20 finds all stars whose distl values are between 10 and 20. Its applicable to any comparable field available in response data of a particular resource

Examples query filters

1. Run this query to filter only blue stars:
   http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?min[colorb_v]=-1&max[colorb_v]=0
2. To see only red stars: http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?min[colorb_v]=0&max[colorb_v]=1
3. To filter stars you can see with the naked yield: http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?min[appmag]=-2.5&max[appmag]=6.5
4. To see stars brighter than 7.5 mag: http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?max[appmag]=7.5
5. To see only the trig parallax stars: http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?dcalc=1
6. To see only the weighted mean stars: http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?dcalc=2
7. To see all the intrinsically bright stars: http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?min[absmag]=10&max[absmag]=-3
8. To see all the intrinsically faint stars: http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?min[absmag]=0&max[absmag]=-3
9. To see all stars within 100 light-years: http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?max[distly]=100
10. To see all stars within 500 light-years: http://star-api.herokuapp.com/api/v1/stars?max[distly]=500