In a former cattle field in rural central Texas, a startup called Starfront has quietly built what it claims is the world’s largest remote telescope observatory by number of scopes.
The facility houses more than 400 telescopes, most of which belong to Starfront’s customers—hobbyist astronomers and space-focused businesses who pay for scope-docking space in one of the company’s 11 observatory buildings. Essentially, it’s a data center for the night sky: Customers ship their telescope, camera equipment, and a mini PC to the site, where Starfront staff install it on a dedicated pier. Once set up, customers can log in over the internet to aim their lenses at stars, planets, or galaxies—all from a location with clear skies and minimal light pollution.
“We want to provide the opportunity for people to enjoy space on their own terms,” says cofounder and CEO Josh Kim. “You could be driven by the desire to participate in scientific discovery, or you might really just want to take pretty amazing pictures that are awe-inspiring and that you can share with your friends and family.”
Starfront’s cofounders include engineer-turned-space-photographer Bray Falls and serial entrepreneurs Kim, Dustin Gibson, and Nate Hanks, all of whom have space-sector experience. They launched the company about a year ago after realizing how many high-end telescopes sit idle, as enthusiasts struggle with urban light pollution and limited time to travel to dark-sky locations.
“Those telescopes that were bought with such excitement and passion are usually just collecting dust in people’s closets,” Kim says.
Even those with the time and money to travel often encounter bad weather or technical issues. It’s not unusual for the owner of a new telescope to spend their first few nights gazing down at cryptic error messages instead of up at the sky, as they struggle to integrate telescopes, accessories, and the computers that control them, Kim says.
Starfront offers an alternative: Customers ship their scopes to the company’s fully built-out site, complete with retractable roofs, high-speed fiber internet, and other amenities. The roughly 10-person team handles setup so that equipment is ready to scan the skies every clear night.
Typically, five or six staff members work on-site (often living in company RVs) at the location about 90 minutes from Abilene. Balancing nighttime observing with daytime business operations can be tough. “Sleep is a hard thing to come by in this particular business and in this particular hobby,” Kim says. The company hopes to hire more locally to improve the workload.
For customers, many of whom connect on Starfront’s Discord server, the experience can feel like a “star party” nearly every clear night, Kim says. There, enthusiasts trade advice on everything from international telescope shipping to astrophotography techniques. Starfront has even coordinated group imaging sessions in which dozens of customers photograph the same part of the sky at once, effectively combining their equipment into a single, higher-resolution, distributed-aperture telescope. Falls has posted images from these efforts on social media, and Kim expects customers will eventually organize such projects on their own.
Miami-based astrophotographer Carlos Garcia uses the Discord to share tips for the Seestar, a compact, easy-to-use digital telescope. He posts remotely captured images and videos from Starfront’s site to his website, YouTube, and social channels. Garcia first learned of Starfront through Falls’ posts and later shipped a Seestar and Mac Mini to Texas, where skies are clearer than in his hometown. He now controls the telescope using remote desktop software.
One big question I got about the observatory is if we have ever pointed all the scopes at one spot? The answer is yes!
This is the result of one such effort, 1650 hours of exposure in Ursa Major! pic.twitter.com/IPt9Cyh7Xp
— Bray Falls (@astrofalls) July 10, 2025
“The amount of time that I can spend imaging with the Seestar is substantially higher than if I were to try to image from Miami,” Garcia says.
When Garcia joined Starfront, the company’s lowest hosting plan cost $150 per month. Since then, Starfront has introduced a $99 plan specifically for Seestars. Prices are based on a telescope’s swing diameter, and the company has developed a system to maximize real estate while ensuring scopes can rotate freely without colliding.
Although Starfront didn’t invent the remote observatory, it has scaled the concept dramatically while undercutting competitors on price and outdoing them on flexibility. The company builds everything in-house, from mounting piers to the weather-tracking software that controls its roofs, Kim says.
Starfront is fully bootstrapped and relies on monthly fees for steady cash flow. Soon, it plans to offer telescope rentals alongside pier rentals, likely starting with Seestars, to make the hobby more accessible. Shorter-term rentals are unlikely—variable weather and moon phases complicate scheduling—but Kim says some customers may choose to sublet access to their hosted equipment.
Longer term, the company hopes to expand to the Southern Hemisphere, opening up a completely different set of constellations and galaxies. Starting in the United States, with the largest amateur astronomy market, was a natural choice, Kim says, but even U.S. astronomy buffs are eager to see what they can capture from across the Equator.
