Frequently Asked Questions

From $79 for your first night ($99 standard, $69 students, $129 on New Moon nights; prices in USD, no tax added). New Moon nights are priced higher because the sky is darkest without moonlight. Every night includes on average 5-6 hours on target (depending on the weather and the season), on one or several objects.

Every session includes: full telescope operation by our team, a ready-to-share processed JPEG, one calibrated and stacked 16-bit FITS master per filter, data delivery within 24 hours, and weather guarantee. We archive the raw light frames and master calibration frames and will send them on request at no extra cost.

Yes. We offer a 7-night package ($549, valid 6 months) and a 20-night package ($1,499, valid 12 months). Credits can be used one per booking from your dashboard — no extra payment needed at checkout.

Yes! The Student package ($69/night) is available to verified students. After creating your account, request student verification and our team will review your status. Approved students keep the discounted rate for the duration of their studies.

No. There is no live view. You choose the target before the night, our team runs the session, and you download the results the next day — at any hour, in your own time zone.

Sessions run during the night in Texas (Central Time). You do not need to be online: everything is prepared before the night and the results wait in your dashboard the next day.

Yes. Book under your own account and email us the recipient's name and address: we transfer the night to their account, or send you a printable voucher.

We operate SkyWatcher Esprit 100 Triplet telescopes paired with cooled monochrome CMOS cameras ZWO ASI2600MM Pro, at about 550mm focal length. Field of view 2.4° × 1.6°, 1.4"/px. Full equipment details are listed on each booking confirmation.

Our primary site is Starfront Observatories in Texas (Bortle 1 sky, excellent northern hemisphere access).

Professional dark-sky sites produce stellar FWHM of 1.5–2.5 arcseconds routinely. You can expect clean, well-sampled data suitable for gallery-quality processing. We reject frames with guiding errors, clouds or poor FWHM before stacking; if the night yields no usable data, you choose a free reschedule or a full refund.

Typical sub-exposures of 300 s (broadband) and 600 s (narrowband), gain 100, dithering every frame, matched master darks and flats, targets imaged above 30° altitude. Custom requests are welcome at booking.

Deep-sky objects: nebulae, galaxies and star clusters visible from Texas on your night, above 30° altitude for best results. Several targets in one night are possible. Our 550 mm telescope is not designed for planets or the Moon. Not sure? Pick a suggested target during booking or ask us.

No. Our team handles all the technical aspects — telescope operation, polar alignment, autofocus, guiding, and data acquisition. You just choose your target and package. The learning curve begins when you process the data, which is where the real creativity happens.

You receive a ready-to-share processed JPEG, plus one 16-bit FITS master per filter (for example Ha, OIII, SII), already calibrated and stacked. Raw frames are available on request at no extra cost. All files are downloadable from your dashboard for 30 days.

We recommend Siril (free, open-source) for beginners, or PixInsight (paid) for advanced processing. Astro Pixel Processor is a great middle ground. Our blog has step-by-step processing guides for each. No software is needed to simply view the included JPEG previews.

We offer broadband Antlia V-Pro series L-RGB and 3nm Pro narrowband (Hα, OIII, SII) filter sets. You can request specific filter combinations when booking, or let our team choose the optimal set for your target.

Your FITS files are fully calibrated and stacked. Before delivery we: (1) calibrate every subframe with the matching dark and flat frames, (2) run a quality assessment and reject frames affected by guiding errors, clouds, or other issues, (3) register (align) all accepted subframes as a sequence, and (4) integrate them into a single master image per filter. Nothing beyond that is applied — no colour combination, background extraction, deconvolution, noise reduction, stretching, or colour calibration. You get a clean, linear starting point and complete freedom over the creative processing. Time permitting, we sometimes add a quick edit of our own as an example of what the data can produce, though this is not guaranteed.

Yes. We archive the raw light frames, the master calibration frames (darks and flats), and the calibrated frames for every session. Just contact us with your booking reference and we will send them over at no extra cost.

You do. Your session is yours to use, publish and share as you like. Our dataset library is built only from our own multi-night projects (10 hours and more), never from customer sessions.

Free rescheduling or a full refund, your choice. We monitor conditions up to 48 hours in advance and alert you if your session needs rescheduling.

You can reschedule from the Reservations page of your dashboard at no additional charge, up to 2 days before your session. A postponement requested less than 2 days before the session is subject to a 50% fee; please contact us to arrange it. If weather conditions affect your session, you choose between a free reschedule and a full refund, as described in our Terms of Use.

Use the Contact page to reach our team. For urgent issues related to an active booking, email us directly — we typically respond within 2 hours during operational hours (15:00–08:00 EST). We also reply to questions directly from booking confirmation emails.