The Apps
Arcsecond.local brings the whole life of an astronomical observatory into a single, self-hosted platform, organised into four apps. The first three follow the three phases of the observation lifecycle; the fourth is what every multi-user install gets for free.
- Night Studio — prepare observations.
- Control Room — acquire new data and automate your nights.
- Data Grand Central — store, package and share your data.
- Observatory Headquarters — run your observatory as a team.
Night Studio
Night Studio gathers everything Arcsecond.local offers to prepare your observations — powerful visualisations to decide what to observe, when and from where.
Night Explorer
Night Explorer, a.k.a. iObserve, our flagship decision-making tool for planning and scheduling observations. Used by many astronomers worldwide.
Transit Browser
The Transit Browser lets you browse the currently accessible exoplanet transits for any time and location, plus non-regular transits and other transiting objects.
Target Lists
Target Lists are a simple way to organise and manage your observing targets — to plan observations, track progress, and share with colleagues.
Finding Chart Editor
The Finding Chart Editor prepares detailed, highly customised finding charts, with custom overlays from large instruments or even your own.
Control Room
The Control Room is the app to acquire new data and automate your observing nights, talking directly to the equipment on (or reachable from) your host.
It covers Equipment Setup, the Observer Console, the Night Scheduler, the Observing Queue and the Calibration Manager. It is the most recent of the four apps and under active development.
Data Grand Central
Data Grand Central stores, organises, packages and shares your data — on your own infrastructure, with no cloud tier and no storage quota.
Data Management
Datasets are the virtual folders containing data. They group (and let you easily download) data files that share a common source or interest.
Storage is where your data lives on the host. External Storages let you attach data you already own (S3, Dropbox, FTP/SFTP, local disk, observatory archives), read-only, so Arcsecond.local indexes it alongside its own data — consolidating your Follow-Up Targets and reconstructing past Night Logs.
Data Packages
Data Packages are custom packages of Datasets to be shared — within your organisation (e.g. for visiting observers), with other astronomers, or with the public.
Data & File Browser
File Browser browses every data file known to the install, whether stored locally or on an attached External Storage.
Follow-Up Targets
Follow-Up Targets automatically tracks every target you have observed. Arcsecond.local maintains the list from your Night Logs and the ones it reconstructs from your stored and attached data.
Observatory Headquarters
Every Arcsecond.local install is multi-user by design. Observatory Headquarters is the app that manages that shared life: an unlimited number of members, a clear 5-level permission scheme, data sharing, and an observatory-wide schedule and history.