An interactive archive that lets visitors fly through two centuries of night-sky observations.
- Client
- Northlight Observatory Museum
- Year
- 2025
- Disciplines
- Web Design & Development, Software & Applications
- Industry
- Culture & Heritage
- Deliverables
The archive as a sky
Every record has a position. The interface uses it — so browsing feels like looking up, not scrolling down.
Built for every visitor
Large type, keyboard navigation and a reduced-motion mode came first, not last.
- Years of observations
- 200
- WCAG target
- AA
- Ways in: map, time, people
- 3
Project notes
Overview
A fictional observatory museum held thousands of hand-drawn star charts with no way to share them. We built a public atlas that turns the archive into something to explore, not just search.
Challenge
Fragile scans, inconsistent metadata, and an audience ranging from school groups to professional astronomers.
Approach
A spatial interface: every chart is placed on the sky where it was observed. Zoom out for the constellation of the whole collection; zoom in to read an astronomer’s margin notes.
Process
Archive workshops with curators, a metadata clean-up pipeline, and weekly prototype testing in the museum’s galleries.
Outcome
A fast, accessible web platform with a curator CMS, open data export and an in-gallery kiosk mode.
- Technology direction
- Jonas Varga
- Interface design
- Capsul Digital Team
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