Astronomy MCP

An MCP server bridging LLMs to major astronomy catalogs (SIMBAD, VizieR, Horizons, NED, Gaia, TNS).

Features

• Object Resolution: Resolve astronomical object names to coordinates (M31 -> 00 42 44.3 +41 16 09).
• Multi-Catalog Search:
  • SIMBAD: Deep sky objects.
  • Horizons: Solar system objects (ephemerides, motion).
  • NED: Extragalactic objects (redshift, velocity).
  • Gaia: High-precision parallax and photometry.
  • TNS: Transient events (supernovae).
  • VizieR: Access to thousands of astronomical catalogs.
• Deep Integrations:
  • cone_search: Find objects around a coordinate across catalogs.
  • check_visibility: Check if an object is visible from your location.
  • crossmatch_object: Find an object's cross-identifications.
• Production Ready: Robust rate limiting, caching, and retry logic.

Installation

pip install astronomy-mcp

Quick Start (Claude Desktop)

1. Install the package:

   pip install astronomy-mcp
   

2. Configure Claude Desktop: Open or create ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json and add:

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "astronomy": {
         "command": "python",
         "args": ["-m", "astronomy_mcp.server"]
       }
     }
   }
   

   Note: Ensure python executable path is correct if using a specific environment (e.g. uv run or /path/to/venv/bin/python).

3. Ask Claude:

   • "What's the current position of Mars?"
   • "Find all galaxies within 30 arcmin of M31 using NED."
   • "What deep sky objects are visible from Denver tonight?"
   • "Get Gaia data for the star Betelgeuse."

Tool Reference

Development

# Install dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest

Configuration

Copy .env.example to .env to configure API keys (if needed for TNS) and tune rate limits.