WatchTheStars.co.uk

A static astronomy website covering planets, stargazing guides, constellation guides, UAP/UFO research, and astronomy news. Built with Eleventy (11ty) and hosted at watchthestars.co.uk.

Current State

Content

Section	Count
Blog posts	91
Constellation guides	16
UAP incident deep-dives	15
Planet pages	10
Star pages	7
Solar system pages	6
Equipment pages	53

Key Features

Tonight tool — /tonight/ — personalised stargazing conditions, powered by Supabase with email alerts
Weekly night sky guide — auto-published every Sunday morning via scheduled task
UAP research section — deep-dive pages on major incidents (Nimitz, Rendlesham, Lakenheath, Phoenix Lights, etc.)
Constellation guides — 16 constellations with IAU-standard star line data
Equipment section — telescope and smart telescope reviews with First Light Optics affiliate integration
Email newsletter — mailing list via Resend API
Dark sky sites — UK dark sky location guide

Social

Instagram: @watchthestarsuk
Linktree: linktr.ee/watchthestarsuk

Tech Stack

Static site generator: Eleventy (11ty)
Templates: Nunjucks (.njk) + Markdown
Styling: Vanilla CSS (conditional loading per page type)
Images: AI-generated via Gemini, or real NASA/ESA photos
Analytics: Google Analytics G-HBKN096JDE
Email: Resend API
Backend (Tonight tool): Supabase
Deployment: FTP to Fasthosts (migrating to Cloudflare Pages)

Build

npm run build

Output goes to _site/. Images and fonts are excluded from git — they live on the FTP server.

Project Structure

_layouts/          # Page templates (blog-post-enhanced, planet-enhanced, uap-feature, etc.)
_includes/         # Shared partials (head, header, footer, breadcrumb, tonight-signup)
blog/_posts/       # Blog post markdown files
planets/           # Planet pages
stars/             # Star pages
solar-system/      # Solar system object pages
equipment/         # Telescope and equipment reviews
docs/              # Internal documentation and deployment guides
scripts/           # Utility scripts (FTP deploy, IndexNow ping, newsletter, etc.)

Deployment

Currently deployed via FTP to Fasthosts. Migrating to Cloudflare Pages (Git-based, auto-deploys on push, free SSL).

See docs/FTP_DEPLOYMENT.md for the current FTP deploy scripts.

Owner: Ian Clayton — [email protected]