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r/Astronomy · u/Soft-Ad7557Aug 1, 2026, 2:31 PM

Been into astronomy since school — curious what pain points the community still has that software could fix

Hey r/Astronomy,

Back in school I got really into astronomy and always had this idea in the back of my head — build something actually useful for people in this space, not just another "planetarium app #47."

I'm a software developer now, and I want to finally scratch that itch. But rather than build something in a vacuum, I wanted to ask the people who actually live this hobby/field day to day:

What's a genuinely annoying part of your workflow that no app has solved well?

Some areas I'm curious about:

Planning a session — weather, moon phase, target visibility, gear checklist — without juggling five different tools
Organizing/tagging a growing image library (especially once you're into the thousands of subs)
Tracking equipment calibration, dark/flat/bias libraries, or gear settings across sessions
Anything in processing or plate-solving that feels more tedious than it should be

I'm not selling anything — this is a "scratch my own old itch" project. If a clear pattern shows up in the comments, I'd love to actually build it and share it back with this community for free.

What's the thing you wish "just worked"?

Comments

u/Horror_Place26971Aug 1, 2026, 2:38 PM
You should definetly ask this in r/askastrophotography. Also something i would like to see is a magical anti-cloud gun
- u/Soft-Ad75571Aug 1, 2026, 2:45 PM
  Ha, patenting the anti-cloud gun the moment I figure it out Total noob confession: I know astronomy and a bit about telescopes, but I haven't gotten into the astrophotography/processing side yet — Siril, stacking, stretching, all of that is new territory for me. So no judgment if this sounds basic, but could you break down what "stretching" or "stacking" actually means in practice? Trying to actually learn this properly instead of nodding along.
  - u/Horror_Place26971Aug 1, 2026, 3:03 PM1 reply
u/BrotherBrutha1Aug 1, 2026, 2:57 PM
One thing I haven't really seen yet: a genuinely good iPad (or other tablet) / phone based open source alternative to the ASIAir software (ASIAir isbasically a kind of mini PC, that you control your mount/scope/camera with). The ASIAir iPad / phone interface is very good - but you are limited to ZWO cameras (at least, in terms of astrocameras) and also some other peripherals like electronic focuser etc. I'd love a decent alternative that I could run a mini pc with for when I'm near the scope, then hand over to more sophisticated software when I'm back at my desk.
- u/Soft-Ad75571Aug 1, 2026, 3:09 PM
  So basically you'd want an app that replaces the current open-source Windows options (like N.I.N.A.) — but with a UI as clean/simple as ASIAir's, minus the ZWO-only restriction? Just want to make sure I've got the gap right before I dig into it.
  
  To be upfront — I probably can't build a whole new system from scratch (drivers, ASCOM/INDI integration, hardware control, all of that). But I could see building a companion app that sits on top of the existing open-source stack (like N.I.N.A.'s API) and just gives it a proper tablet-friendly interface — so you'd still run N.I.N.A. underneath, but control it from your iPad the way you would with ASIAir.
  
  Would something like that actually solve your problem, or is the full hardware-control layer also part of what's missing?
  - u/whyisthesky1Aug 1, 2026, 4:36 PM1 reply
  - u/BrotherBrutha1Aug 1, 2026, 6:29 PM
u/betterthansex691Aug 1, 2026, 3:00 PM
Id say ai incorporated into an app that helps with astrophotography but there are already several. If you could develop an app that either does what those do, but better, or come up with things your app could do that the other apps fall short on, that could be a solid one. You know what would be wicked, and maybe im being naive here as it may be a thing already, but if you could get ai to basically do the job of things like O III filters, or hydrogen filters etc. but without the physical filter.
- u/Soft-Ad75571Aug 1, 2026, 3:19 PM
  Haha, that's a fun one to think about — and no, you're not being naive, it's a genuinely interesting idea. But I looked into it a bit and wanted to be upfront about why it's trickier than it sounds. The core issue is that OIII/Hα filters aren't just a "look" — they physically isolate a specific wavelength of light your camera would otherwise blend into broader RGB data. Once your sensor doesn't capture that specific data, no AI can *actually* recover it — it can only guess based on patterns from similar-looking nebulae it's seen before. So it wouldn't be real narrowband data, just an AI's best guess dressed up to look like it. That's honestly the exact thing this community tends to push back on hard — a lot of processing tools already catch heat for "hallucinating" detail that was never really there, since accuracy really matters here (some people actually use the Hα/OIII data scientifically, not just for pretty pictures). So realistically, the most honest version of this would be a "preview" tool — clearly labeled as an AI-guessed simulation, not real data — maybe useful for deciding if a target's even worth buying a filter for. Not a filter replacement, just a fun/informational preview. Curious if something like that would still be useful to you, or if it's only interesting as "the real deal"?
  - u/jacksodus1Aug 1, 2026, 7:39 PM
u/Original-F-I-G1Aug 1, 2026, 6:24 PM
Two things. First, an AI that is local and not connected to an evil organization. One that works like the ship's computer on Star Trek. Second, stop. Just stop. Software haven't solved a real problem in 20 years. Just made up new ways to complicate simple things. You all have moved fast enough and broke plenty.
u/BrotherBrutha1Aug 1, 2026, 6:40 PM
If I'm allowed a second vote - this might be an ambitious one! What I would also like to see is a node-based astronomy image processor. Pixinsight has just introduced layers, but I reckon we could go one better with the kind of node based approach you see in e.g. Blender. Each node would be a particular operation; noise reduction, star removal, stretching, maths, combination etc - and you can link the output (or just one channel of the output) to the input of subsequent nodes. You could save your common workflows as a network of nodes - you would be able to tweak the values of earlier steps and see the results in the final image in real time (depending on the processes!). Perhaps the operations and data structures could be based on Siril. As a final benefit it could be built as "AI native" with built in MCP server: so you could tell your chat engine of choice you want a network that "separates the stars, stretches, applies noise reduction to the green channel, then recombines with the starless data".