Texas facility hosts more than 550 remotely operated amateur telescopes

Starfront Observatories, in Rockwood, Texas, has become a hub for remote amateur astronomy, allowing owners to rent space in sheds to mount their telescopes and control them over a high-speed data connection. In about a year and a half the site has grown from zero to more than 550 telescopes, the company says.

Owners ship a telescope, a digital camera and a computer to Starfront, where technicians install the equipment on steel mounts inside 11 identical shed-like buildings. Customers can run long-exposure astrophotography sessions remotely; the company offers mounting spots starting at $99 a month for the smallest systems. The collection ranges from small Seestar models to a two-foot-wide mirror telescope owned by one founder.

The founders — Dustin Gibson, Bray Falls, Nathan Hanks and Josh Kim — say their goal is to make astronomy more accessible, and the site was chosen for dark skies and fiber-optic internet despite Texas not being an obvious location. Customers and founders have posted images and reported much higher imaging hours than they can get at home, and Starfront has bought an adjacent 20-acre plot and is exploring a second site in the Southern Hemisphere. The company has also set up a Discord community to help users as it scales, after initially struggling to keep up with customer support.

Key Topics

Science, Starfront Observatories, Rockwood Texas, Astrophotography, Dustin Gibson, Discord