Open-source citizen science software
Turn your astrophotos into science.
Load your images. Turn them into discoveries, educational tools, and scientific visualizations -- without any expert technical knowledge.
Science
Education
Visualizations
What CAst is built around
Your data stays with you.
Clear steps from images to results
Transparent Adaptable Community-built
Train your model for predictions.
Advanced tools for expert users.
Five modes
Explore the sky through multiple layers of discovery.
Differential Photometry
Measure the light curves of exoplanets, eclipsing stars and more.
Asteroid / Comet Detection
Detect asteroids/comets and view their trajectories in 3D view
HR Diagram
Explore stars, star clusters, and stellar evolution.
Transient Finder
Search new or fading transients such as supernovae
Sky Explorer
Identify objects and create customizable annotations.
The hidden value of astrophotography
Every night,
astrophotographers capture
scientifically useful data.
Modern astrophotographers routinely capture image sequences filled with variable stars, asteroids, comets, satellites, transients, and other measurable phenomena. But turning those images into reliable scientific results usually requires specialized software, field knowledge, scripting, photometric judgment, and familiarity with reporting standards.
The data is already there. The workflow is the barrier.
From raw sequences to usable results
CAst exists to close that gap.
It provides a guided, local-first desktop environment where beginners can load their images, follow clear visual workflows, and produce meaningful results without needing to understand every technical detail.
Your images or downloaded survey data.
Automated and customizable pipelines.
Automatically generated scientific results.
Simple when you start. Powerful when you need it.
Simple on the surface.
Scientific underneath.
Beginner Friendly
Guided workflows
Load your images, follow clear visual steps, review results, and export useful outputs without getting lost in technical settings.
No telescope yet? CAst includes example datasets in every mode, so you can start right away.
Expert Capable
Scientific control
Photometry, catalog matching, candidate review, quality checks, AAVSO-ready exports, and machine-learning tools remain available beneath the guided interface.
Explore all the scientific tools included in CAst.
Confirm performance for yourself
Validated against known targets.
Citizen Astronomy does not only surface possible discoveries. It also attempts to recover targets that are already known, then compares those recoveries against expected results as a form of self-confirmation. That gives users a more realistic sense of what the software is recovering reliably, where its limits begin, and where broader validation is still needed as development continues.