Download Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA for specified dates

apod.js

#!/usr/bin/env node

/**
 * script to get NASA APOD pictures in HD quality for specified period of time
 * you need NodeJS v12+ to use shebang, and you need jq and wget
 * Get the API key from NASA https://api.nasa.gov/index.html
 * usage: NASA_API_KEY='asdg' APOD_FROM=2019-09-09 APOD_TO="2000-01-01" ./apod.js
 */

const {exec} = require('child_process')

const API_KEY = process.env.NASA_API_KEY
const API_URL = `https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod?api_key=${API_KEY}`

const getCommand = (path) =>
  `curl "${path}" | jq .hdurl | xargs wget -nc | true`

const getAPODdata = (date) =>
  new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    const url = `${API_URL}&date=${date}`
    exec(getCommand(url), (error, stdout, stderr) => {
      if (error) {
        console.error(`stderr: ${stderr}`)
        return reject(error)
      }
      return resolve('ok')
    })
  })

const downloadAPOD = async (startDate, eDate) => {
  const now = (startDate && new Date(startDate).getTime()) || Date.now()
  const endDate = new Date(eDate || '2018-01-01').getTime()
  for (
    let timestamp = now;
    timestamp >= endDate;
    timestamp -= 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000
  ) {
    const date = new Date(timestamp).toISOString().slice(0, 10)
    await getAPODdata(date)
    console.log('downloaded', date)
  }
}

downloadAPOD(
  process.env.APOD_FROM || '2017-12-20',
  process.env.APOD_TO || '2000-01-01'
)