Automatically set photos from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as your desktop wallpaper, across one or more monitors, with a single double-click.
PowerShell only — no installation, no administrator privileges, no API key.
- Primary source: scraping of esawebb.org — categories sorted by ranking (
nebulae,anniversary,galaxies,stars). - Fallback: Wikimedia Commons, category "Images by the James Webb Space Telescope", used automatically if scraping returns fewer than 10 images.
- Images are downloaded, resized (max side 3840 px) and set per-monitor through the Windows COM API
IDesktopWallpaper, with the "Fit" position (whole image, no cropping). - On multi-monitor setups each screen gets a different image.
Everything is already included in Windows 10/11:
- ✅ PowerShell
- ✅ Internet connection (to download the photos)
- ✅ No installation, no admin privileges, no API key
- Copy the folder wherever you like (e.g.
C:\Tools\nasa-wallpaperor onto the Desktop). You can excludeimages/(those are just already-downloaded photos, they regenerate by themselves). The files you actually need areSet-SpaceWallpapers.ps1andInstall.ps1. - Create the icon: right-click
Install.ps1→ "Run with PowerShell". This creates the "JWST Wallpapers" icon on your desktop, automatically pointing to the correct path. - Use it: double-click the icon → a window opens letting you choose which monitors to change.
If Windows blocks execution because of the execution policy, the icon already works around it (it uses
-ExecutionPolicy Bypass). If you run it manually and get an error, run this once:Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned
# Open the chooser window (same as the icon)
.\Set-SpaceWallpapers.ps1 -GUI
# Change ALL monitors
.\Set-SpaceWallpapers.ps1
# Change only the monitor with index 0 (0-based)
.\Set-SpaceWallpapers.ps1 -Monitor 0The argument-less form is suitable for a scheduled task (Task Scheduler) to rotate wallpapers at regular intervals.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
Set-SpaceWallpapers.ps1 |
Main script: scraping, download, wallpaper setting, GUI. |
Install.ps1 |
Creates the "JWST Wallpapers" desktop icon pointing to the script. |
images/ |
Wallpapers downloaded at runtime (excluded from the repo, regenerated). |
nasa-wallpaper.log |
Execution log (excluded from the repo). |
The images belong to their respective owners and are not redistributed in this repository: they are downloaded by the user at runtime.
- ESA/Webb — see the esawebb.org copyright and usage terms. Most images are licensed under CC BY 4.0, with attribution required.
- Wikimedia Commons — each file has its own license; check the file page.
The mast-example.jpg image shown above is an example for illustration purposes.
The code in this project is released under the MIT License — see LICENSE. The license covers only the script, not the downloaded images.