open-overwatch

Open Overwatch

From your street to the cosmic web, live. 18,000+ satellites (every active one plus three debris clouds), storms, quakes and tonight's sky, then the planets, 1.57 million asteroids, the planets of other stars and 43,480 galaxies, in one continuous zoom. Positions are checked against NASA JPL. It runs in your browser (phones too), with no install, no account and no build step. Live aircraft come with the free download.

▶ Website · 3D globe · Solar System · 2D ops map · the 30 s clip (MP4)

What you can do

• Zoom from a street to the cosmic web without a cut. The 3D globe hands its camera to the Solar System view past the Moon (same pixels, same instant, one clock), and takes it back when you zoom into Earth.
• Tonight, for any place. What you can see tonight (passes of the ISS and bright satellites, the planets, the Moon, meteor showers, the aurora chance, how dark the sky is), sunrise and moonrise to the minute, for where you are or for any town you type. A link (tonight.html#at=18.52,73.86&name=Pune) opens it over that place, and #embed=1 makes it a light card for another web page.
• What's in the sky tonight in your city. A page for each of 441 cities with tonight's facts worked out at every site build (every 6 hours): sunset and darkness, the Moon's phase, the planets that are up, the next ISS pass, how dark the sky is there and what to find with binoculars, above the live Tonight card. India's 84 cities have them in Hindi too.
• For teachers. Twelve classroom activities for ages 7 to 18 (day and night, the Moon, plate boundaries, the ISS, seasons, Kepler's laws, exoplanets, the eclipses of 2027 to 2030), each with links that open the globe, the Solar System or Tonight at the right moment, plus how to cite it and how to keep it offline.
• Look up. On a phone, hold it to the sky: the camera follows the motion sensors and shows what is above you right now. That includes satellites, the planets and the bright stars (and aircraft with the free download), plus your next ISS pass.
• Watch near misses happen. The closest upcoming conjunctions in orbit (CelesTrak SOCRATES): pick one and the clock jumps to 45 s before closest approach, with both objects and their orbits on screen.
• See the 2027 eclipse before it happens. The Moon's shadow crosses the globe for every solar eclipse of 2027–2030, with how much of the Sun each one covers from where you are.
• Follow the missions. 28 spacecraft on NASA JPL Horizons tracks, from Voyager to Juno's orbits around Jupiter and ISRO's Chandrayaan-2 around the Moon and Aditya-L1 at the Sun-Earth L1 point.
• Fly into another solar system. 6,339 exoplanets at their real stars. TRAPPIST-1's seven worlds orbit at their real speeds, positioned from their measured transit times, with the habitable zone drawn in.
• Light is slow at this scale. A "ghost" shows where Earth actually sees Jupiter (49 light-minutes ago), and our radio bubble (everything broadcast since 1920) lights up the stars it has reached.
• Know where each item came from. Every live card says which sources reported it, how many agree and how old the data is: an earthquake that USGS and EMSC both list, with EMSC's own solution rather than a copy of USGS's, reads "confirmed".
• 2D ops map: ships, quakes, storms, radar, cameras and news on one dark map. Live aircraft and military flights come with the free download.
• Ask Claude about it. The MCP server in mcp/ has 38 tools that answer questions about earthquakes, satellites and their passes, launches, storms, ships, weather, the aurora and tonight's sky from the same open data, each answer with a link into the globe; in Claude Desktop the live globe appears in the chat. No account, no keys.

Install / run

Where	How
Any device	Open https://destinjones.github.io/open-overwatch/ (Install, or Add to Home Screen, keeps the pages and datasets you have opened for offline use)
Windows (the download, with live aircraft)	iwr https://github.com/destinjones/open-overwatch/releases/latest/download/open-overwatch.zip -OutFile oo.zip; Expand-Archive oo.zip .; cd open-overwatch; node serve.js (or unzip it and double-click Start Open Overwatch.bat)
macOS / Linux (the same download)	curl -LO https://github.com/destinjones/open-overwatch/releases/latest/download/open-overwatch.zip && unzip open-overwatch.zip && cd open-overwatch && node serve.js (or python3 serve.py)
Claude Desktop	Download open-overwatch.mcpb and open it
Any MCP client (once published to npm)	npx -y open-overwatch-mcp · Claude Code: claude mcp add open-overwatch -- npx -y open-overwatch-mcp

The download needs Node.js 18+ or Python 3 and nothing else (no npm install); the helper opens the 2D map in your browser, and every page is under http://127.0.0.1:8787/. Until the npm package is out, the MCP server runs from a clone (mcp/README.md).

How it compares

Open Overwatch is not the best at any one of these jobs; it is the one that does them all in one zoom, in a browser, from open data. Where another tool is better at its own job, the table says so in bold. The other projects are as their own sites and code described them in October 2026.

	Open Overwatch	Stellarium Web	NASA Eyes	Flightradar24	Celestia	KeepTrack.space	gods-eye-view
Live Earth data	Satellites, quakes (USGS + EMSC), storms, wildfires, radar and forecast weather, tides and sea temperature, Baltic ships, transit, public cameras; live aircraft in the free download	— (the sky only)	NASA's Earth satellites and climate "vital signs"	Aircraft: the best coverage, history and detail	—	Satellites, sensors and debris in depth	Aircraft, ships, traffic, CCTV, weather (radar US only), fires (with a key)
Planets / exoplanets / cosmic web	All three in one zoom: 1.57M asteroids, 6,339 exoplanets, 43,480 galaxies	Planets and the sky, beautifully / — / —	Planets and missions / Eyes on Exoplanets / —	—	Planets, moons, galaxies; add-ons	—	—
Phone	Yes, in the browser; installable	Yes, in the browser	In the browser (heavy)	Native apps	iOS and Android apps	Yes, in the browser	Desktop install; phones get CSS breakpoints
No account	Yes, and no API keys	Yes	Yes	Basic use; subscriptions for more	Yes	Yes	Yes, but many feeds need your own API keys
Open source / licence	MIT (data under each source's terms)	Engine AGPL-3.0	No	No	GPL-2.0	AGPL-3.0	MIT (some bundled data non-commercial)
Offline	The installed app keeps the pages, code and datasets once opened; live feeds need a connection	No (desktop Stellarium: yes)	No	No	Fully offline	Not checked	Runs locally; feeds need a connection
Accuracy source	Orbits tested against NASA JPL Horizons; SGP4 on public element sets; every live item says which sources agree and how old it is	Stellarium's ephemerides	JPL SPICE (the reference)	Its own ADS-B/MLAT receiver network	VSOP87, optional SPICE kernels	SGP4 on public element sets	Each feed as it comes
MCP / AI	38-tool MCP server; Claude Desktop shows the globe in the chat	—	—	Official MCP server (@flightradar24/fr24api-mcp); needs a paid FR24 API key	—	—	MCP server; voice with an OpenAI key

Why not just use X?

• Stellarium Web if you want the most realistic sky dome and star catalogue: it is better at that. Open Overwatch's sky is one part of a bigger zoom (your street, every satellite, the planets, other stars' planets, the cosmic web) with a live Earth around it.
• NASA Eyes if you want mission-grade positions for a spacecraft: JPL's SPICE data is the reference, which is why our planets and moons are tested against JPL Horizons. Eyes is not open source and does not show what is happening on the ground; Open Overwatch is MIT and does.
• Flightradar24 if flights are what you care about: it is the best at it, with native apps and history. Open Overwatch's live aircraft come only with the free download, from community ADS-B networks, as one layer among many.
• Celestia if you need it fully offline or want its add-on universe. Open Overwatch needs a connection for live data and runs in a browser with nothing to install.
• KeepTrack.space if you work with satellites: its sensors, breakups and catalogue tools go further than ours. Ours puts the same SGP4 satellites next to the weather, quakes, storms and tonight's sky, with pass times for your town.
• gods-eye-view if you want photorealistic 3D cities and live aircraft and ships on your own machine and have the API keys. Open Overwatch is a link that works on a phone with no keys, and it zooms out past the Moon.

How it's built

flowchart LR
  subgraph build["Built offline (brand/tools/*.py, cached downloads)"]
    JPL["JPL SBDB · Horizons\nNASA Exoplanet Archive\n2MRS · HYG · USGS maps"] --> data["data/solar/*.bin|json\ndata/eclipses.json"]
  end
  subgraph site["Site build every 6 h (.github/build_site.py)"]
    CT["CelesTrak groups + SOCRATES"] --> mirror["data/tle/*.txt\ndata/socrates.json"]
  end
  core["src/core — DOM-free, tested\nKepler · planets · moons · rotation\nTLE · passes · eclipse · orientation · accuracy"]
  data --> solar["solar.html (three.js)\nsrc/solar/*"]
  mirror --> globe["globe.html (CesiumJS)\nsrc/globe/*"]
  core --> solar & globe & map["open-overwatch.html (Leaflet)\nsrc/map/*"]
  globe <-->|"camera + clock hand-off\nin ICRF, iframe"| solar

• No build step. The pages load ES modules from src/, and the libraries (CesiumJS 1.146, three.js 0.186, Leaflet 1.9, satellite.js 5) come from CDNs; the satellite workers use a copy of satellite.js in src/vendor/.
• One frame of reference: heliocentric ecliptic J2000, AU and Julian dates in the Solar System view. Earth-fixed positions use Cesium's IAU 2006 rotation, and the hand-off between the two views goes through the ICRF.
• 1.57M asteroids in one draw call per file: 15-byte packed orbital elements, with Kepler's equation solved per point in the vertex shader every frame.
• 18,000+ satellites propagated with SGP4 in a web worker; the dots follow the clock at any speed and in reverse.
• A log depth buffer spans 24 orders of magnitude: from 150 m to 16 billion light-years in one scene.

Accuracy (measured on 2 Oct 2026 against JPL Horizons; the tests hold them within the formulae's limits)

	Error vs NASA JPL
Planets (JPL approximate elements)	1.5″ (Uranus) to 4.4′ (Saturn)
Moon	0.9′ · 189 km
20 major moons (orbits fitted to Horizons)	≤ 0.4° (Io 0.75′, Titan 0.09′)
Eclipse of 2 Aug 2027	greatest eclipse 25.51°N 33.16°E, 10:06:39 UT, 6 min 27 s (NASA: 25°31′N 33°08′E, 6 min 23 s)
Satellites	SGP4 from public element sets: ~1 km at epoch, 1–3 km/day after

These are the errors on one date, the test fixture of 2 October 2026. The tests allow more, the limits of the formulae (Saturn 15′, Jupiter 12′, the Moon 12′, the moons in the fixture 1°), and the app's "Under the hood" panel repeats the measurement live.

Speed

Measured with brand/tools/perf.mjs, zoomtest.mjs and mobile_journey.mjs; details are in docs/PERFORMANCE.md.

Desktop (RTX 3060)	165 fps (the display's refresh rate) in every view at rest; ~120 fps flying the globe; 5 frames over 50 ms in an 18 s round trip from Earth to the stars and back
Phone (emulated mid-range Android, 4G)	globe on screen in 6.4 s / 4.9 MB; Solar System in 4.1 s / 3.2 MB
Adaptive	High / Balanced / Low graphics; Auto starts on Low on phones and software WebGL and steps down when frames run slow; Low draws at 0.75 of the resolution (0.66 on phones) with no FXAA or limb halo, capped at 30 fps; Starlink's ~8,000 dots start off on phones

Run it from a clone

• node serve.js (or python3 serve.py) in the folder; it opens the 2D map in your browser, and every page is under http://127.0.0.1:8787/.
  • The helper relays the few feeds that send no CORS headers. That adds live aircraft and military flights on the globe and the 2D map, which the website can't show.
  • Windows: Start Open Overwatch.bat.
• Tests: npm install once (the MCP server's one dependency), then node --test: over 800 tests, from JPL Horizons fixtures and textbook identities to every MCP tool against canned feeds. CI also checks every module's syntax and every page's links.

Path	What
src/core/	the maths, DOM-free and unit-tested
src/globe/, src/solar/, src/map/	the three views
mcp/	the MCP server for Claude and other AI apps (setup)
brand/tools/	data builders (Python), performance and capture tools (Node, headless Chromium over CDP), Blender scripts
docs/	architecture, data sources and licences, performance, notes

Credits

NASA JPL (SBDB, Horizons, approximate planetary elements), NASA Exoplanet Archive, NASA GIBS (Blue Marble, Black Marble), NASA/GSFC SVS Deep Star Maps, USGS Astrogeology and NASA/JPL/SSI moon maps (Phobos: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO), 2MASS Redshift Survey (Huchra et al. 2012), HYG v4.1 (CC BY-SA), Solar System Scope textures (CC BY 4.0), the Milky Way artwork by NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, and CelesTrak (GP data, SOCRATES). Live feeds: adsb.lol, adsb.fi, airplanes.live, OpenSky, USGS, EMSC, NOAA, NASA EONET/FIRMS, GDACS, GDELT, Digitraffic, aisstream.io, SondeHub, RainViewer, TeleGeography. OpenSky's data (download version): Matthias Schäfer, Martin Strohmeier, Vincent Lenders, Ivan Martinovic and Matthias Wilhelm, "Bringing Up OpenSky: A Large-scale ADS-B Sensor Network for Research", IPSN 2014. Basemap: Powered by Esri (Esri, Vantor, Earthstar Geographics, and the GIS User Community). Full list with terms: docs/DATA_SOURCES.md. These are public and volunteer services; check each one's terms before any commercial use.

Fork it, build on it, or take it over

I vibe code this with Claude (an AI): I describe what I want, Claude writes and tests it, and I try to make good calls. It surely has bugs. Please download it, fork it and build anything you like, no need to ask. If you'd like to take the whole project over, a hand-off is what I'd prefer: open an issue and say so.

Want to help? CONTRIBUTING.md gets you from a clone to a running, tested copy in a few minutes (or one click with the dev container), with a list of good first issues. What changed when: CHANGELOG.md. How the project is run and handed over: GOVERNANCE.md. Security problems: SECURITY.md.

Credit and licence

Open Overwatch is by Destin Jones (GitHub), built in public with Claude as the building partner. Also by me: Ironbound, a free open source RTS made with Godot, and CarFinder, every new car on sale in 11 countries with what it really costs.

The code is MIT licensed (LICENSE): use it, fork it, build on it, and keep the copyright line. The data, maps, textures and models it shows belong to their sources and keep their own licences: see docs/DATA_SOURCES.md. If you write about it or build on it, please credit it: Jones, D. (2026). Open Overwatch [Computer software]. https://github.com/destinjones/open-overwatch (GitHub's "Cite this repository" button reads CITATION.cff).

Read the notices at the bottom of the site: no warranty, not for safety use, other people's data can be wrong or faked, and a specific warning about weather-balloon data (anyone can upload it; the layer is off by default and asks first).