Host guide

1How hosting works

Celestarray is a marketplace where astronomers book time on remote telescopes. You list the hours your telescope would otherwise sit idle; customers book and pay; your observatory captures their target; you upload the data and get paid.

1. Customer booksand pays for a time slot and target
2. You confirmor decline from your Hosting page
3. You capturewith your own software and safety rules
4. You uploadthe data, and your 80% is paid out

Payouts. Customers pay when they book, and Celestarray holds the payment until the session has happened. Your share is released 48 hours after you mark the session completed, and Stripe pays it to your bank account. If a customer cancels late and part of the payment is kept, you receive your share of that part.

Customer cancellations refund 100% (24 hours or more before), 50% (2 to 24 hours before) or nothing (under 2 hours). Full details are in the booking policy.

2Getting set up

1. Apply. Fill in the short form on the Become a host page: your organisation, location, telescope, camera and control software. We read every application personally.
2. Get approved and sign in. Once approved, sign in at celestarray.com with the same email. There's no password: we email you a secure sign-in link. Open Hosting from the menu.
3. Add your telescope. Fill in the form on the Hosting page:
   • Basics: name, main use (deep space, Moon, Sun or planets), the targets you allow, and a description of your site, sky quality, mount and filters.
   • Location: site name plus latitude and longitude (two decimals is plenty). The planner uses these to show customers what's well placed from your site.
   • Equipment and optics: aperture, focal length, camera, sensor size and pixel size. These power the framing preview and field-of-view tools.
   • Automation software (NINA, Voyager, ACP, SGP, TheSkyX, MaxIm DL, KStars/Ekos) and your filter names exactly as your filter wheel shows them, so exported session files load without edits.
   • Price and minimum booking: price per hour in Canadian dollars. Customers book in 30-minute steps; 30 minutes suits Moon, Sun and planets, while deep-sky usually needs at least 1 hour.
   • Opening hours: your site's time zone, and either "bookable at any time" or a window for each day of the week.
4. Add photos. Save the telescope, then click Edit to add photos of your rig and site (JPEG, PNG or WebP, up to 10 MB). The first photo is used on listings.
5. Block your own nights. Use Blocked dates for maintenance, research, outreach or private nights. Customers just see the time as unavailable.
6. Set up payouts. Click Set up payouts at the top of the Hosting page and complete Stripe's onboarding (about 5 minutes). Shares for completed sessions wait safely until you do.
7. Go online. Make sure Online and bookable is ticked. You can take the telescope offline at any time with one click.

Solar telescopes: only list the Sun as a target if a proper solar filter is fitted at all times. The Sun can't be booked on any other telescope.

3Running a booking

1. A request arrives. You get an email, and the booking appears under Bookings on these telescopes with the customer's target and capture plan (filters, exposure lengths and counts) and any notes.
2. Confirm or decline by the deadline. Requests must be answered by 12 hours before the session (late bookings give you up to 2 hours). The deadline is shown on the booking. Unanswered requests are declined and refunded automatically, and declines are always refunded in full.
3. Load the session into your software. On a confirmed booking, open Export and download the file for your software:

   Software	File	How to load it
   NINA	Target (.xml)	Simple Sequencer > Load target. Carries the target, coordinates and frames; start it at the booked time.
   NINA (Advanced Sequencer)	Target list (.csv)	Import targets; add your own instructions.
   ACP / ACP Scheduler	Plan (.txt)	Waits until the start time (UTC) and stops at the end.
   KStars / Ekos	Scheduler (.esl) + sequence (.esq)	Download both, and point the scheduler job at the .esq on your computer.
   Anything else	Job sheet (.txt or .csv)	Plain instructions to set up by hand.

   If the customer chose a target without catalogue coordinates, the file says so: resolve the coordinates in your software.
   Custom framing: customers can drag the frame in the framing preview to choose exactly what they shoot. The booking then says Custom framing with the chosen centre and position angle, and every export uses that centre. Point there rather than at the catalogue position, set the angle, and plate-solve to confirm. View framing on the booking shows you what they picked.
4. Capture. Your observatory runs the session within its own limits. The first few minutes are for pointing and focusing.
5. Upload the data. Open Session data files on the booking and upload the FITS files plus a JPEG or PNG preview (up to 50 MB per file). The customer downloads them from their account.
6. Mark it completed. The customer is emailed that their data is ready, and your payout is released 48 hours later.

Each booking also has a private Messages thread with the customer: use it for questions about the plan, or to share how the night went.

4Cloudy nights and faults

• Closed for the whole session (cloud, weather, safety or a technical problem): cancel the booking from the Hosting page. The customer gets a full refund automatically.
• Cut short partway through: upload what was captured, mark the session completed as usual, and say in the booking messages how much time was lost. Celestarray refunds the customer that share, and your payout is reduced to match.
• Your systems decide. Whether the observatory opens is always your call and your software's. Customers who cancel themselves because of the forecast follow the normal cancellation rules.

5Tips for more bookings

Images belong to the customer. You may post images from a session on your website, social media or advertising (credited with the customer's first name and your observatory) only when the booking says the customer allows sharing. Customers choose this with a tick box when they book.

6Connecting your own software (optional)

If you'd like your observatory computer to pick up bookings automatically, create an API key under your telescope on the Hosting page. The full key is shown once; keep it like a password. With it, your own scripts can:

• Read upcoming jobs: confirmed bookings with start and end times (UTC), target, J2000 coordinates, frames using your filter names, and notes, as JSON.
• Send a heartbeat so your Hosting page shows when your computer was last online.

A key can only read your telescope's confirmed bookings and report that it's online. It can't change bookings or control anything, and you can revoke it at any time. A ready-made Celestarray Host Agent (starting with a NINA plugin) is on the way; tell us what you run and we'll prioritise it.

7Questions and contact

Email [email protected] and we'll get back to you, usually within a day. Answers to common questions are in the FAQ, and the full rules are in the booking policy and terms.