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Project catalog

The project catalog is Skynet's collection of ready-made projects. Each one is a complete project you can create your own copy of, with the observations already configured and a set of guides and information for completing it — so you can start a structured piece of work without authoring every observation from scratch.

The catalog is maintained by the Skynet team.

What's in a catalog project

Open any catalog project and you'll find:

  • What it does — the science or learning goal, who it's for, and what you'll end up with.
  • What it needs — the kind and amount of telescope time, and any choices you'll make (such as picking a target).
  • Step-by-step guidance — pages that walk you through carrying it out and making sense of the results, plus a checklist to track your progress.
  • Pre-configured observations — the observations the project will create for you, already set up with sensible defaults (exposures, filters, scheduling windows).
  • Results to capture — the deliverables the project asks you to collect (images, data files, measurements, notes), each with a label and a short description, so the results area doubles as a finish-line checklist. See Projects and observations → Results and deliverables.

Creating a project from the catalog

When you start a catalog project, Skynet creates your own copy — a new project that you own, populated with the project's observations ready to run. Along the way you supply the things that are yours to choose:

  • the owner (you or one of your organizations),
  • the observing grants that will fund the work,
  • a target (when the project lets you pick one), and
  • any options the project marks as adjustable.

The new project's observations are ready for the scheduler immediately; you can still fine-tune each one on its detail page. From there it behaves like any other project.

Catalog or build your own?

Use the catalog when the work is something Skynet has already encoded — a standard lab assignment, a well-trodden science workflow, a beginner-friendly first project. The catalog version comes with guidance and defaults chosen by its author.

Build your own when the science is custom enough that no catalog project fits, or you simply want to assemble the observations yourself.

The catalog spans a range of difficulty and topics — beginner imaging exercises, lunar and planetary projects, and stellar/cluster science. See Projects and observations → Examples for a sampling.