Booking & cancellation policy

Draft for legal review. Last updated November 2026.

Booking and payment

• Sessions are booked in 30-minute steps, up to 8 hours. Each telescope sets its own minimum length.
• Prices are shown per hour in Canadian dollars and charged for the time you book. You see the total before paying.
• You pay when you book, through Stripe. Your time is held for you while you complete payment; if payment isn't completed, the time is released.
• Sessions must be booked at least 1 hour before they start.
• Once paid, your booking goes to the telescope's host, who confirms it. If the host declines, you receive a full refund.
• The host must confirm by 12 hours before the session (a booking made later than that gives the host up to 2 hours). If they don't, the request is cancelled and you receive a full refund automatically.
• We email you when your request is sent, confirmed, declined or cancelled, a reminder before the session, and when your data is ready.
• The first few minutes of each session are used for pointing and focusing the telescope.

If you cancel

When you cancel	Refund
24 hours or more before the session starts	100%
Between 2 and 24 hours before	50%
Less than 2 hours before, or after it starts	No refund

Cancel from My bookings. Refunds go back to the card you paid with; banks usually show them within 5 to 10 business days.

Weather, faults and host cancellations

• If the host closes the observatory because of weather, safety or a technical problem, they cancel the session and you receive a full refund.
• If a session is partly lost to cloud after it has started, the host decides in good faith whether to offer a partial refund or a replacement session.
• Check the cloud forecast in the Planner before booking. Forecasts are guidance, not guarantees.

Solar safety

The Sun can only be booked on telescopes the host has fitted with approved solar filters. Hosts are responsible for safe operation of their equipment at all times.

Your data

Images and data captured during your session are yours to keep, process and share. Hosts upload them to My bookings after the session. We ask that you credit the telescope and Celestarray where practical.

For hosts

• Hosts receive 80% of each booking; Celestarray keeps a 20% service fee, which also covers payment processing.
• Celestarray holds each payment until the session has happened. The host's share is released 48 hours after the host marks the session completed (after uploading the customer's data), then Stripe pays it to the host's bank account.
• Payouts need Stripe's onboarding to be finished; shares for completed sessions wait until it is.
• Requests must be confirmed or declined by the deadline shown on the Hosting page; unanswered requests are declined and refunded automatically.
• When a customer cancels late and part of the payment is kept, the host receives their share of the part kept.

Questions? Contact us.