Frequently asked questions

Choose a telescope, pick a date and start time, and request your session. The host confirms it, and at the booked time their observatory captures your chosen target. You don't need any equipment of your own.

Telescopes on Celestarray are spread across many time zones, so the booking calendar uses one universal time (UTC) to avoid mix-ups. We also show the matching time in your own time zone, which you can set on your account page.

Use the Planner. Pick a telescope and date and it shows which targets are well placed, when they're highest, how dark the sky gets, where the Moon is, and the cloud forecast. The Book button opens the booking with the best hour already selected.

Each telescope has an hourly price set by its host, shown in Canadian dollars, and you pay only for the time you book. You see the total before you book. There's no subscription or sign-up fee.

Sessions are booked in 30-minute steps, up to 8 hours. Each telescope sets a minimum: usually 30 minutes for Moon, Sun and planet telescopes, where captures are quick, and 1 hour or more for deep-sky telescopes, where faint targets need long exposures. The first few minutes of any session go to pointing and focusing.

Yes, from My bookings. Cancel 24 hours or more before the session for a full refund, or between 2 and 24 hours before for 50% back. There's no refund in the last 2 hours. If the host declines your booking or cancels for weather or a fault, you always get a full refund. See the booking policy.

The host's own weather and safety systems decide whether the observatory opens. If the host has to close for the whole session, because of cloud, weather or a technical problem, they cancel it and you get a full refund.

If cloud arrives partway through, you keep everything that was captured and get a refund for the time that was lost. The host tells us how much of the session was lost (you'll see it in your booking messages), and we refund that share of the price, usually within 2 days.

Cancelling yourself because the forecast looks bad follows the normal cancellation rules, so check the cloud forecast in the Planner before you book.

Not at launch. Your session runs on the host's own observatory software within their safety limits, capturing the target and settings you chose. Live control may come later for experienced users on selected telescopes.

Full-resolution data files (usually FITS) and preview images, ready for you to process in the software of your choice.

You do. Images and data captured during your session are yours to keep, process, share, publish and sell. We just ask that you credit the telescope and Celestarray where practical.

Nobody else uses them without your permission. If you're happy for Celestarray and the telescope's host to feature your images on their websites and social media, credited with your first name, turn on sharing in your account settings. It's off unless you choose it, and you can turn it off at any time.

Only telescopes fitted with proper solar filters can be booked for the Sun, and the Planner won't offer the Sun on any other telescope. Never point an unfiltered telescope at the Sun.

Observatories, astronomy clubs, schools and experienced amateurs with a permanently mounted, remotely operable telescope. Apply here and we'll review your setup.

Yes. You set the price, the targets you allow and when it's online, and you confirm or decline every booking from your Hosting dashboard.

Customers pay when they book, and Celestarray holds the payment until the session has happened. Hosts receive 80% of each booking, released 48 hours after they mark the session completed and paid by Stripe to their bank account; Celestarray keeps a 20% service fee, which covers payment processing. Hosts connect Stripe from their Hosting page.

Hosts must confirm by 12 hours before the session (or within 2 hours for last-minute bookings). If they don't, your request is cancelled and you get a full refund automatically. We email you either way.

No. We email you a secure sign-in link, or you can continue with Google.

Open My bookings and use the Settings panel.