Overview
This node integrates with NASA's public API to fetch the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). It allows users to retrieve detailed information about the daily featured astronomical image, including its title, explanation, and media URL. This node is useful for educational content creators, astronomy enthusiasts, or anyone interested in incorporating daily space imagery into their workflows or applications.
A practical example would be automatically posting the daily APOD on a website or social media channel, or archiving the images and metadata for research or personal use.
Properties
| Name | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Additional Fields | Optional extra parameters to customize the request. Currently supports: |
| - Date | Specify a particular date to get the APOD for that day instead of today's picture. |
Output
The node outputs JSON data representing the Astronomy Picture of the Day. The structure typically includes fields such as:
date: The date of the APOD.explanation: A description or explanation of the image.media_type: Type of media returned (e.g., image or video).title: Title of the APOD.url: Direct URL to the image or video.- Other metadata fields provided by NASA's APOD API.
If the media is an image, the URL points to the image file; if it is a video, the URL points to the video source.
No binary data output is indicated by the code.
Dependencies
- Requires an API key credential for NASA's API to authenticate requests.
- The base URL used is
https://api.nasa.gov. - No additional environment variables are required beyond the API key credential setup in n8n.
Troubleshooting
Common issues:
- Missing or invalid API key will cause authentication errors.
- Requesting a date outside the valid range of APOD data may result in errors or empty responses.
- Network connectivity problems can prevent successful API calls.
Error messages:
- Authentication failures typically indicate an invalid or missing API key. Ensure the API key credential is correctly configured.
- Invalid date format errors can occur if the date property is not properly formatted; ensure dates are ISO strings (YYYY-MM-DD).
- Rate limiting errors from NASA's API may occur if too many requests are made in a short time; consider adding delays or caching results.