What's in our skies?

Observational Citizen Science
of Earths atmosphere and beyond.

Our vision.

  • Facilitate a citizen science project to observe the skies and all their phenomena around the globe, 24/7 and provide harmonized high-quality results and analysis – available to everybody.

  • Develop hardware and software with and for the project community under MIT and Creative Commons License.

  • Support the development and operation of a global network of sky observation stations to provide global live sky situation awareness.

What we do.

We provide a community platform, tools and support to all people interested in observing the skies for stars, meteors, satellites, planes, drones, weather phenomena, birds, UAPs or anything else that happens in our atmosphere and low Earth orbit.

We already support the Discord channel the UAP Tracking Forum for the community of UAP trackers with over 2,200 members.

Together with and for the community we develop hardware and software for a 24/7 citizen sky observatory that can detect, track, identify and analyze any arial phenomena and yet is still affordable for citizens.

credit: Paul/France 2023

Example #1: Something is falling from the sky.

credit: Aaron/Alaska 2021

Example #2: UAP #1 above Houston.

credit: Adam/Texas 2021

Example #3: UAP #2 above Houston.

credit: Adam/Texas 2021

How we do it.

For our Sky360 citizen science project, we set 5 preconditions:
  1.   Open source hardware development under Creative Commons License
  2.   Open source software development under MIT-License
  3.   Open source data generation
  4.   Management and support of the global Sky360 R&D community
  5.   System based on affordable, harmonized hardware for DIY

Our benchmark for optical tracking.

Since analyzing software and AI require good data quality, we need to track fast moving events in Earths atmosphere and low orbit with a minimum video resolution of 3-4 px for the event. Our benchmark is to detect, track and identify the ISS, moving at a distance of 422km (250 mi), at a speed of 7.66km/s (28k km/h, 17.4k mph) and is visible for around 2 minutes (depending on the location).

Detection, Tracking and Triangulation

Hardware development.

To achieve the required resolution, a combination of an AllSkyCam (fisheye) and a PTF (pan-tilt-focus) camera is required. The ASC monitors the sky 24/7 and registers everything that moves in the sky as an event (aircraft, drone, bird, etc.). An initial rough analysis of each event determines whether to activate the PTF or other sensors. The PTF then focuses on the particular event, tracks it, and analyzes the now 30x more detailed event.

All hardware components we use, such as cameras, passive radar, temperature gauges, geophones, etc. must be available worldwide and off-the-shelf. At Sky360 we search, buy and test different options, currently for the combination of the ASC and the PTF. Our goal is to find the best price for the quality we need and to share our findings with the community.

Our curated list of recommended hardware products can be found here.

All future additions and developments from Sky360 will be compatible with existing hardware purchased on previous SkyHubs' recommendation.

Software development.

The software will cover various functionalities.

The core part is the tracker with image processing, a neural network (NN) with a machine learning (ML) based identifier and prioritizer, as well as a messaging system for all connected sensors.

For the connected sensors we first focus on the PTF for guiding, vector-ahead tracking and production of high resolution video data.

Currently all stations data is collected and stored locally. However, we plan to develop a software/AI for a cloud service that can aggregate event data from all active stations. The analysis will include additional external data such as air traffic, weather, etc.

The first version of our open source Sky360 software is scheduled for release in 2023.

The Sky360 station.

Since a sky observing station will be outdoors 24/7, the sensitive electronics must be protected from all weather conditions. Since there are no good off-the-shelf solutions for this purpose, we have developed and are further developing an enclosure for the Sky360 community, that is available for purchase here.

Hardware costs.

We recognize that the cost of our Sky360 citizen science project must be as low as possible. Therefore, we recommend a modular system. Start with basic equipment and add more sensors later. Currently the range is US$ 1,500 - 5,000. All details you can find here.

To reduce costs, you can share a Sky360 station with friends, workmates or neighbors, because one station covers a radius of 30km (18.6 mi). And you can all access the collected data.
If budget allows, you can observe an even larger area along with other sky observing stations to get an even bigger picture. For a small town only 3-4 stations are needed and with only 9 stations you can cover the sky over all of Los Angeles!

Think about this: 
It only takes 150,000 stations and everyone can observe the sky around the world – almost seamlessly!

Support, partnership & funding.

As Sky360 is a global citizen science project with and for the community - it needs your engagement.

You can engage with us either by joining our discussions in the UAP Tracking Forum, by setting up your own Sky360 station, or by joining one of our development teams and contribute your expertise.
You can collaborate with us scientifically by co-developing and sharing data and help us cover the costs of test hardware, communications, web and cloud space.

Get involved

Join us on the Discord server UAP Tracking Forum, where we meet to discuss new topics on research, development and science in the field of observational citizen science of aerial phenomena.

Here you also find friends, who are building their tracking stations.


Join the forum

Open source software development

Development of Sky360 software is done by several teams.

Click the button, if you want to contribute and join one of our teams.


Join the dev teams

Open source hardware development

Development of Sky360 hardware is done by several teams.

Click the button, if you want to contribute and join one of our teams.


Join the dev teams

Your donations help

We are developing hard- and software and sometimes we need test equipment that cost money.

Therefore we kindly ask our supporters to contribute on Patreon to cover test equipment as well as organizational costs.


Patreon

5 levels of patronship.

Worldmap of sky awareness stations.

Sky Awareness Stations

● Sky360 - stationeers, developers

Channels.

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