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Comment by nebula8804 | Hacker News Reader

Is there any way to get alerts on your phone of these events before they happen? It always seem like by the time they make the press and get disseminated on sites like HN it is too late. Was very frustrated by the solar eclipse a while back because by the time the mainstream press picked up on it, glasses were sold out everywhere. There is too much going on to have to manually research and systematically keep track of every topic of interest. Isn't that the point of the News, and sites like Reddit/HN?

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NASA puts out a new video called "What's up" at the start of every month with all the interesting, predicted events for stargazing. They post them to both Twitter [0] and YouTube [1] as well as on their Skywatching page [2], the latter of which is a great resource with daily guides. It's a fun start-of-the-month ritual for me to check out the latest events and add them to my personal calendar.

For actual notifications, most stargazing apps probably have some sort of news feed or notification system. I can't recommend a specific one but a quick Google search tells me Star Walk 2 [3] seems to support push notifications

[0] https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/1532030924489039877 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpgiZJm7szg [2] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatching/home/ [3] https://starwalk.space/en/tutorials/how-can-i-get-notified-a...

I use an iPhone app called "Sky Guide". It sends me notifications of interesting events, and the app itself has a "Calendar" page with a list of everything upcoming.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sky-guide/id576588894

Separately, if you are a New York Times subscriber, you can also subscribe to their Space and Astronomy Events calendar feed:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/science/astronomy-s...

I also recommend an iPhone app called "ISS Finder". It will notify you when the International Space Station will be making a visible flyby over you. You can then run outside and watch the ISS glide across the night sky at 17,000 mph. It takes about one minute to cross the sky. I always feel awe seeing that ISS dot, knowing humans can launch other humans into orbit 250 miles above.

Yes, always a fun sight. Sky Guide has ISS notifications as well.

I second this recommendation. Sky Guide is a wonderful app for space enthusiasts. The calendar feed does a great job of surfacing upcoming events, and even provides insights on light pollution and ideal viewing times in your area.

Thanks for the tip, looks great! Will it notify for possible aurora borealis sightings as well?

I don't know, I'm afraid I don't live somewhere that can see them.

Does anyone have an Android recommendation that's similar?

Unlike the eclipse this one will last a few days. Then the planets will slowly drift apart but for the next couple of mornings it will be noticeable.

hey thanks a lot for asking this question, I had no idea I needed this :)

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