ISS Tracker

ISS Tracker is a Python application that monitors the location of the International Space Station (ISS) and checks if it is near a specified location during nighttime. It utilizes the requests library to interact with the api.open-notify.org API for ISS location data.

Features

• Tracks the real-time location of the ISS.
• Determines if the ISS is near your location (latitude/longitude).
• Verifies whether it is nighttime at your location using sunrise and sunset data.
• Sends notifications when the ISS is visible.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• Libraries:
  • requests
  • datetime
  • time

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/MostafaHima/iss-tracker.git
   cd iss-tracker

2. Install required libraries:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Run the script:

   python main.py

How It Works

1. The application fetches the ISS location using the API endpoint:

   http://api.open-notify.org/iss-now.json
   

2. Your location is compared to the ISS location based on latitude and longitude.

3. It checks if it is nighttime at your location by comparing the current time with sunrise and sunset times (can be fetched using additional APIs like Sunrise-Sunset API).

4. Sends a notification if the ISS is visible.

Example Output

ISS is near your location! Look up at the sky!

Known Issues

• The API api.open-notify.org may occasionally time out. Retry logic is implemented to handle this.
• Network issues can prevent the script from running properly.