Starfront provides the ultimate remote observatory experience crafted by astrophotographers, for astrophotographers. Our location near Rockwood, Texas offers access to some of the darkest skies in the world to astronomers and astrophotographers of all telescope sizes and types at an affordable price.
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One of them might be in Germany, another in Japan, and a third in an American city whose inhabitants only see the brightest stars. Each of them opens their computer, or leaves their program running automatically, and the telescope farm transforms into an observatory distributed among hundreds of minds, united by one place but separated by thousands of kilometers.
This isn't a hypothetical vision of the future of astronomy, but an existing model of a service known as "Remote Telescope Hosting." A prime example is the Starfront Observatories in Texas, which operates on the simple principle: own your telescope, leave it in a more suitable observing location than your home, and control it remotely via the internet.
The Starfront story began in 2024, when astrophotographer Bray Folls teamed up with partners, including Josh Kim, Dustin Gibson and Nate Hanks, to turn the idea of hosting telescopes into a large-scale project.
They did not invent remote observation; astronomers and observatories had already used the internet to control devices, but they wanted to make this capability available to large numbers of amateurs, at prices lower than the cost of setting up a private observatory.
Most farm telescopes are owned by their owners around the world, but some are rented out at nominal prices depending on the type.
In July 2025, Fast Company reported that the project, located on a former cattle ranch, now housed more than 400 telescopes across 11 buildings. According to the company's official website, the number later exceeded 900 operational telescopes.
Hosting fees start at $99 per month for small smart telescopes, and go up to $149, $199, $299, and $399 depending on the size of the instruments and the space required for their operation. This means that $99 is not a fixed price for all telescopes.
Why Texas? And what's the secret behind the clear skies?
The farm is located near the town of Rockwood, far from the lights of major cities. The company classifies the sky at the site as a Category 2 on the Portl scale, one of the darkest natural categories, where faint objects obscured by city lights can be photographed.
The company says the site enjoys about 200 to 240 clear nights a year, giving telescopes more observing opportunities than many owners in cities have.
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