AstroBlob Club frequently asked questions

Both. A small monthly fee for keeping the club open, and a variable part worked out from the members who logged into the platform that month. It is billed in arrears, once you already know how many there were. Blobs are separate, and you buy them when you need them.

Anyone who has done something on the platform during the month. A registered member who does not log in that month does not count towards the variable part of the fee.

No. A package bought today is still there two years later. You can buy when it suits you and share it out at whatever pace you like.

It depends on the aperture of the telescope chosen: from a few euros to around twelve per hour on the largest instruments. Blobs are bought in packages —10 € buys 100 blobs— and each project adds a fixed one-blob fee.

No. The contract renews yearly and you can decide not to renew with thirty days notice. Before that there is a free trial period so you can try it with your members.

Yes, and it works out cheaper: paying the year up front comes with a discount on the total.

Nothing is lost: blobs do not expire and stay in the club wallet. And if you have a telescope in the network, whatever it earns is credited there and offsets your next bill.

If the results are unusable because of an equipment fault, the blobs are refunded in full. There is an incident module on the platform to claim it, and if the telescope owner and you cannot agree, AstroBlob arbitrates and its decision is binding.

No, and we would rather say so plainly. Observing depends on the weather at the observatory and on the state of the instruments, neither of which we control. What we do is spread telescopes across different latitudes and hemispheres, so there is a better chance of clear sky somewhere.

If more than half of the booked window is lost, no booking surcharge is applied: you only pay for what was actually observed.

You are billed for the last months of the trial period and for the blobs actually used. Nothing else.

Sharing out the blobs. From the admin panel you assign them to a member or a working group, by hand or with automatic rules, and from there each member organises themselves. The board can see usage per member and per group at all times.

Yes. Blobs bought personally belong to them, and the club administrator cannot claim or redistribute them.

Yes, and they can also pool them in a working group for a shared project.

No. Everything runs in the browser, from any device, and the images are downloaded from there.

It is processed only to provide the service and is not passed to third parties except where the law requires it. Accounts use email verification and data is stored encrypted.

No. Whoever brings a telescope keeps guaranteed priority on it: their members requests come ahead of any other club, you can book windows for your own activities outside the general queue, and switch it off for external use whenever you want.

A percentage of every observation others make, higher the larger the aperture. That balance is credited to the club wallet and you can cash it in euros or spend it on other telescopes in the network.

You do, within the range for its aperture.

Deep sky with long exposures, planetary and lunar video, exoplanet photometry, and booking an hour to use a telescope within a specific window.

Yes. In an electronically assisted astronomy session the image stacks up on screen as you watch, so it works for an activity with members or open to the public without waiting hours for a result. You book a time window on a specific telescope.

Seven days from when the project finishes. After that they are deleted from the server, so it is worth downloading them as soon as they arrive: they are yours to keep, but we do not store them indefinitely.

Yes, in the format matching each project type, together with the calibration frames the telescope itself takes, so you can process them properly.