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Smart Radio Telescope

Control an Az/El/polarization radio telescope mount over your local WiFi
New in version 1.1
Radio sky overlays (Haslam 408 MHz, HI4PI) and an object catalogue with
rise and set times. Raster scans with a live heatmap, shareable as an image.
Tracking of eight bright radio sources, a virtual joystick, a live signal
chart and Raspberry Pi health. The phone's position can set the site.
Landscape layouts and many fixes.
Smart Radio Telescope is the mobile client for a self-built satellite-dish radio
telescope with a motorised Azimuth / Elevation / Polarization mount. It
connects over your local WiFi to the telescope's Raspberry Pi controller and
turns a phone into its control station.

SKY VIEW AND RADIO MAPS
* All-sky dome with stars, constellations and the dish's current pointing
* Radio sky overlays from the Haslam 408 MHz and HI4PI hydrogen-line surveys,
so you can see where the sky is bright at radio wavelengths
* Object catalogue with the Sun, the Moon and radio targets such as Cas A,
Cygnus X, W51, IC 443, M31 and 3C 273, each with a short description and
its rise and set times
* Tap a star or object to point the dish at it

RASTER SCANS
* Drag a rectangle on the sky to map it
* Choose the sweep axis, the pattern, the speed and the number of rows
* Watch the map fill in as a live heatmap while the dish sweeps
* Share the finished scan as an image

SOURCE TRACKING
* Eight bright radio sources ready to observe: Cas A, Cyg A, Tau A, Vir A,
Cen A, Sgr A*, Orion A and Fornax A
* Shows which of them rise high enough at your site
* One tap starts tracking; the mount follows the source across the sky

MOUNT CONTROL
* Big STOP button, homing of all axes or one at a time, wake and sleep
* Go to horizontal (Az/El/Pol) or equatorial (RA/Dec) coordinates, or track
an RA/Dec position
* Travel-range hints and warnings before a target would hit an endstop
* Step buttons with a configurable step size
* Virtual joystick for driving azimuth and elevation by hand: the speed
follows your finger, the dish stops the moment you let go, and a red rim
shows when an axis has reached its travel limit

LIVE TELEMETRY
* Position, motion and homing state of each axis, pushed live from the mount
* Endstop switch levels and the motor controller's temperature
* Live radio signal chart with minimum and maximum
* A clear banner when telemetry goes stale or the mount refuses a command

SYSTEM
* Health of the Raspberry Pi: temperature, load per core, memory, disk and
uptime, plus the firmware and backend versions
* Clean shutdown of the Pi from the app, with a confirmation step
* Works in portrait and landscape

HARDWARE COMPANION
This is a hardware companion app: it does nothing on its own. It requires the
matching open-source telescope hardware and Raspberry Pi backend, which are
part of the same project. The app talks only to a device you run yourself on
your own network — it contacts no external servers, and nothing it reads
leaves that network. For development and classroom demos, the project also
ships a simulator that stands in for the mount.

LOCATION
While the telescope's backend knows no better position than its fallback,
the app asks for the phone's location once per connection — and offers a
button to ask again — and sends it only to that backend. The backend uses
it for pointing, shows it to the telescope's other clients and writes it to
its log; it does not keep it past a restart. The app itself stores no
location. You can also enter the site by hand in the settings; a phone or
GPS position takes precedence over a hand entry.

Built as a school demonstrator for radio astronomy.

Versions

Although APK downloads are available below to give you the choice, you should be aware that by installing that way you will not receive update notifications and it's a less secure way to download. We recommend that you install the F-Droid client and use that.

Download F-Droid
  • Version 1.1 (2) suggested Added on Oct 02, 2026

    arm64-v8a armeabi-v7a x86 x86_64

    This version requires Android 8.0 or newer.

    It is built and signed by F-Droid, and guaranteed to correspond to this source tarball.

    Permissions
    • access approximate location only in the foreground
      This app can get your approximate location from location services while the app is in use. Location services for your device must be turned on for the app to get location.
    • access precise location only in the foreground
      This app can get your precise location from location services while the app is in use. Location services for your device must be turned on for the app to get location. This may increase battery usage.
    • have full network access
      Allows the app to create network sockets and use custom network protocols. The browser and other applications provide means to send data to the internet, so this permission is not required to send data to the internet.
    • eu.radio_science_institute.smart_radio_telescope.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION

    Download APK 14 MiB PGP Signature | Build Log

  • New in version 1.0
    First F-Droid release. Az/El/RA-Dec pointing, manual axis control, homing,
    live telemetry over WebSocket, and a built-in star/constellation sky view.
  • Version 1.0 (1) - Added on Aug 23, 2026

    This version requires Android 8.0 or newer.

    It is built and signed by F-Droid, and guaranteed to correspond to this source tarball.

    Permissions
    • have full network access
      Allows the app to create network sockets and use custom network protocols. The browser and other applications provide means to send data to the internet, so this permission is not required to send data to the internet.
    • eu.radio_science_institute.smart_radio_telescope.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION

    Download APK 11 MiB PGP Signature | Build Log