These terms of service govern Chatstronomy Hub.

This document was last updated on 11 September 2026.

These terms apply to the hosted Chatstronomy Hub operated by Yann Ramin at hub.chatstronomy.com, including its Discord application and connections from paired N.I.N.A. installations.

By signing in, pairing an installation, or using the hosted service, you agree to these terms and the hosted Hub privacy policy. The self-hosted terms govern separate installations that you operate locally without the hosted Hub.

1. Chatstronomy Hub is a hosted service for telescopes.

The Hub authenticates users with Discord, manages telescope ownership and Discord server attachments, accepts outbound encrypted connections from N.I.N.A. plugins, and routes configured observatory updates to authorized Discord channels. It can also relay read-only equipment queries and, only when independently enabled inside N.I.N.A., hardware-changing commands.

This is an operated online service, not a purely local application. Account details, observatory telemetry, images, notifications, selected logs, routing configuration, and operational activity can pass through or be retained by service infrastructure and Discord as described in the hosted privacy policy. You are responsible for deciding whether the service is appropriate for your observatory and for the information you permit your installation to share.

2. Users must manage their accounts and access securely.

You must have authority to connect the equipment, Discord servers, and channels you configure. Protect your Discord account, N.I.N.A. computer, pairing codes, rig credentials, and any accounts or roles permitted to manage your equipment. Do not share credentials publicly, access another user's equipment without authorization, interfere with the service, or use it in a manner that violates the Discord Terms of Service or applicable law.

Server managers can configure access within the servers they manage; telescope sharing can expose observatory information to additional channels or communities. Review destinations, server membership, role assignments, and shared subscriptions before connecting a rig or enabling additional access.

3. Telescope control requires local, explicit consent.

Local consent is the equipment-side trust boundary. Hub permissions, Discord server management checks, selected roles, and confirmations can further restrict command access; they are not a substitute for the local N.I.N.A. permissions and cannot override them. Disable the master switch whenever you want a monitoring-only installation, or disable individual commands you do not want to expose.

Once local control and the relevant individual command are enabled, supported actions can include parking or unparking a mount, starting or stopping guiding, changing filters, adjusting camera cooling, running autofocus, aborting exposures, and starting or stopping imaging sequences. A request to skip sequence validation requires an additional, separately enabled local permission beyond permission to start the sequence. Accepting or submitting a command does not itself guarantee that an asynchronous equipment operation completed successfully. Once N.I.N.A. accepts a locally permitted command, its terminal failure is always sent through the Hub as part of that command exchange; check the reported outcome and actual equipment state.

4. Physical safety remains your responsibility.

A remote command can move real equipment without anyone standing nearby. Incorrect or malicious commands may cause mount collisions, cable wraps, optical damage, unsafe operation around people or moving roofs, interrupted exposures, or lost observing time. The Hub cannot reliably know your local roof position, physical clearances, weather conditions, daylight, wiring, or presence of people.

Enabling control means the safety of your installation also depends on the security of your N.I.N.A. computer, Discord accounts and roles, hosted service infrastructure, software dependencies, and network connections. A compromise of any authorized component could expose information or, where local control has been enabled, permit equipment commands. Keep physical interlocks, horizon and meridian limits, emergency stops, and other independent safety systems configured. The Hub is not a safety controller.

Optional weather readings and notifications are informational and are not a safety system. Sensors, N.I.N.A., the plugin, the network, the Hub, or Discord can make a reading or post delayed, missing, or inaccurate. Maintain independent weather monitoring, physical interlocks, and emergency procedures.

5. The Hub shares and retains specific information.

Most ordinary event families, images, and N.I.N.A. popup notifications start enabled. Meaningful weather changes, high-wind alerts, slew start/end diagnostics, and rotator move start/end diagnostics have independent controls and all start disabled. Review every setting in N.I.N.A. before pairing. Event-family switches control transmission, not merely Discord notifications. Events in a disabled family, including previously buffered records, are not sent to the Hub or local runtime. Events captured while a family is disabled are not released if it is later re-enabled, and there is no state-maintenance exception. Disabling images also blocks image history, previews, thumbnails, and automatic image delivery, including previously captured images. Other permitted events, equipment-status snapshots, and explicitly requested non-image slash-command data can still be shared. Once N.I.N.A. accepts a locally permitted command, its terminal failure is always delivered as part of that command exchange and is not controlled by optional event switches. Raw N.I.N.A. logs start disabled and are forwarded only for individually enabled levels. When enabled, motion diagnostics watch live N.I.N.A. state. When both moving and idle edges are observed, the plugin pairs them and reports the interval between them. Slew records include a requested target when N.I.N.A. provides one and observed moving and idle RA/Dec positions; state-observed start/end altitude and azimuth remain subject to the local location-sharing setting. N.I.N.A. does not expose the requested rotator target at its public start-state boundary. State-observed rotator starts report available sky and mechanical angles; a recovered start carries the callback's available logical or mechanical From angle. An ordinary ended record means N.I.N.A. first reported the device idle, not that settling finished or the operation succeeded. If a short move completes between live updates, Chatstronomy reconstructs the pair from N.I.N.A.'s completion callback, marks the capture as Recovered after motion began, and omits a duration it could not observe. A recovered mount start contains callback RA/Dec but no historical altitude or azimuth because the callback has no start timestamp; its end uses the available live idle snapshot. Neither recovery record implies success. When enabled, meaningful weather-change posts group qualifying readings and are rate-limited. The high-wind option compares wind speed or gusts with a user-selected threshold in meters per second and reports alert and recovery transitions. General weather-change posts can contain numeric temperature, dew-point, humidity, pressure, cloud, rain, wind, sky, and seeing data. High-wind records contain only wind speed, gust, threshold, and alert state and may resynchronize an active alert after reconnecting or changing the threshold. Neither includes the weather station's name or device or driver identifiers. Observatory-location sharing is disabled by default; when disabled, the plugin redacts site coordinates and practical location-derived mount readings. Hardware device and driver identifiers are always redacted. Your connection IP address, permitted images, metadata, equipment display names, timestamps, and optional logs can still disclose sensitive information. Messages and images posted to Discord remain subject to Discord's retention practices and the access granted to its users.

The primary service runs on AWS infrastructure in the United States. Live account and routing records, operational logs, and administrative audit history do not all have fixed automatic expiration schedules. Autofocus delivery records are retained until the telescope is deleted. Database backups are created approximately hourly, with previous encrypted backup versions retained for up to 90 days. The hosted privacy policy explains the current categories of information, subprocessors, and retention limits.

6. You can disconnect your plugin or request account deletion.

You can disconnect the N.I.N.A. plugin, revoke a rig credential, remove a telescope, or remove channel routes through available plugin and Hub controls. The Hub does not currently provide a self-service account-deletion endpoint. Account deletion or questions about associated audit records require a manual request to the operator. Previously created database backups can retain removed information for up to 90 days, and Discord messages must be removed through Discord.

7. The operator limits liability and can modify the service.

The Hub and its software are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. There is no promise of uninterrupted connectivity, continuous notifications, error-free command execution, backup restoration for a particular user, or any particular service level. The operator may modify, restrict, suspend, or discontinue the service when necessary for security, maintenance, or operational reasons.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, the operator disclaims warranties and liability for equipment damage, personal injury, lost observing time, exposed or unavailable data, failed notifications, unauthorized commands, or other consequences of using the hosted service. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that applicable law does not permit to be excluded. Chatstronomy is an independent project and is not affiliated with N.I.N.A., Discord, or Amazon Web Services.

These terms may be updated as the service changes. The date above identifies the current published version, and revision history is maintained in the website's source repository.

8. You can contact the operator through the issue tracker.

Chatstronomy Hub is operated by Yann Ramin. Questions, service reports, and requests to discuss account deletion can be initiated through the Chatstronomy issue tracker. GitHub issues are public. Do not include passwords, pairing codes, access tokens, private observatory coordinates, or other sensitive information; any required account verification should be arranged separately.