This policy governs the privacy of self-hosted Chatstronomy.

This document was last updated on 31 August 2026.

The Chatstronomy application runs entirely on your local computer, does not communicate with our servers, and does not transmit any information about you or your equipment to us.

This covers only the self-hosted application. Chatstronomy Hub is a separately operated hosted service and is not covered by this statement. Read the hosted Hub privacy policy for the account information, observatory data, infrastructure, retention, and deletion practices that apply when you connect to the Hub.

We do not collect personal data.

We do not collect any personal data. The self-hosted application does not use project-operated accounts, developer telemetry, analytics, crash reporting, or license checks. Because this version never contacts our servers, there is no channel through which we could collect information.

Settings, credentials, and logs remain on your local machine.

• Nonsecret delivery, privacy, and equipment-control settings are stored in the relevant N.I.N.A. profile. Discord webhook URLs, bot tokens, and Matrix passwords are stored separately in Windows Credential Manager.
• The application maintains a small state file containing the identifiers of chat messages so the bot can edit a live status post instead of creating a new post each time.
• The application and N.I.N.A. can generate local logs. Credentials are passed to the bundled runtime through a current-user-only named pipe, not through command-line arguments or generated configuration files.

To remove local data, remove the application, its N.I.N.A. profile settings, its Windows Credential Manager entries, and any remaining state or log files. Content already sent to Discord or Matrix must be removed through that service.

Event switches decide what may leave N.I.N.A.

Most ordinary event categories, image delivery, and N.I.N.A. popup notifications are enabled by default. Meaningful weather changes, high-wind alerts, slew start/end diagnostics, and rotator move start/end diagnostics have independent controls and are disabled by default. Review every setting before starting the local runtime. Disabling a category prevents its underlying events from reaching the runtime, including events that were previously buffered. Events captured while a category is disabled cannot be released later by turning it back on. No state-maintenance exception bypasses these settings. Disabling images also blocks image history, previews, thumbnails, and explicit last-image requests.

Equipment-status snapshots and permitted non-image, read-only queries can remain available independently. 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. log forwarding is disabled by default and must be enabled separately for each log level.

Observatory-location sharing is disabled by default.

The plugin removes observatory latitude, longitude, elevation, and location-derived mount readings before data leaves N.I.N.A. unless you explicitly enable location sharing in that profile. Hardware device and driver identifiers remain redacted even when location sharing is enabled. Target names, celestial coordinates, image contents, capture metadata, equipment display names, notifications, and optional logs can still reveal sensitive information. Review the information you choose to share.

Data is transmitted directly to Discord or Matrix.

The application transmits the data you configure it to post, such as images, autofocus and guiding results, durable safety status, sequence progress and failure summaries, image-save failures, optional mount-slew and rotator-move start/end diagnostics, plate-solve results, dome/shutter activity, flat-panel cover, light, and brightness changes, and connection state for weather and switch devices. Enabled sequence sharing can also include user-authored annotation and message text. Failure summaries can contain sanitized N.I.N.A. operational error text; local path-shaped strings are redacted before transmission. This data is sent directly from your machine to the configured chat service using your bot credentials, and it is governed by that service's privacy policy, such as the Discord Privacy Policy, or your Matrix homeserver's policy.

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 are included only when observatory-location sharing is enabled. 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.

A permitted Hocus Focus autofocus report can enrich the standard N.I.N.A. result with fit-quality statistics, accepted-star counts, normalized crop-region geometry, validation status, and selected algorithm settings. Raw Hocus settings objects, filesystem paths, device IDs, autofocus images, and star lists are not included in the Hocus report sent by the plugin.

Structured weather data leaves the plugin only through two independent local opt-ins. Meaningful weather-change notifications group qualifying changes and are rate-limited. High-wind notifications use wind speed or gust readings, a threshold you set in meters per second, and report alert and recovery transitions. General weather-change posts can contain numeric temperature, dew-point, humidity, pressure, cloud-cover, rain-rate, wind-speed, wind-gust, wind-direction, sky-temperature, sky-brightness, sky-quality, and seeing readings. High-wind records contain only wind speed, gust, threshold, and alert state. An active alert may be resent after a reconnect or threshold change to synchronize status without another chat alert; missing readings do not clear it. Weather-station names and device or driver identifiers are not included. The plugin does not capture switch values or LiveStack data. Enabled popup notifications and opt-in raw N.I.N.A. logs remain unstructured text and may contain operational details.

Weather notifications are informational telemetry, not a safety system. Sensors, N.I.N.A., the local runtime, the network, or a chat service can produce delayed, missing, or inaccurate readings and posts. Do not rely on them to protect equipment or people.

We do not have access to this data and cannot retrieve or delete it. If you need to remove information from a channel, you must manage it directly through your chat service.

Image previews and their accompanying capture metadata may reveal equipment, target names, timestamps, or other observatory details. Anyone with access to the selected channel or room can view content posted there.

Slash commands are processed locally.

Hardware control and every individual equipment permission start disabled. A Discord hardware command requires both the local master switch and that command's individual N.I.N.A. permission; skipping sequence validation requires additional local approval. With no explicit user allowlist, only managers of the configured Discord server can request locally permitted commands. If you configure an allowlist, only its listed users qualify. Commands must originate in the telescope's configured Discord channel; direct messages are rejected. These checks happen locally, while Discord still processes the original interaction. Once N.I.N.A. accepts a permitted command, any later terminal failure is sent to the configured chat as part of that command exchange. The self-hosted terms describe the risks of enabling equipment control.

The marketing website collects standard web metrics.

The website at chatstronomy.com consists of static pages. The web server maintains standard access logs containing IP addresses to assist with site operations and security.

The site uses Google Analytics to measure visitor traffic and analyze page usage. It stores cookies in your browser and transmits details to Google, including your IP address, visited pages, and browser or device information. This data is processed by Google in accordance with the Google Privacy Policy, and we only access aggregated, anonymous reports.

The website does not collect analytics or metrics from the Chatstronomy application. The application does not connect to our servers. If you wish to opt out of web analytics, you can use a content blocker or the Google opt-out browser add-on, and the site will continue to function fully.

The software is not directed at children.

The Chatstronomy application is not directed at children, and we do not collect or store personal data.

You can contact the project via the issue tracker.

You can submit questions or reports through the project's issue tracker.