TPT AstroLink — Project Cosmos

Cloud-native remote observatory control and a distributed "virtual observatory" network for crowdsourced sky monitoring.

Overview

TPT AstroLink democratizes astronomical observation by bridging amateur hardware and professional-grade data collection. It provides:

A SaaS remote observatory control dashboard (mobile-friendly, cross-platform).
A distributed "virtual observatory" network for crowdsourced sky monitoring via the Relay scheduling protocol.
Edge AI transient alerts that automatically trigger "Target of Opportunity" events when a brightness anomaly is detected.

Architecture (Zero-Python)

Component	Tech	Role
TPT Edge Agent ("Node")	Rust	Lightweight binary on observatory hardware (Raspberry Pi 5, Intel NUC). FFI to INDI/ASCOM C/C++ drivers, FITS capture, edge AI inference, MQTT/S3.
TPT Cloud Core	Go	WebSocket gateway, MQTT bridge, Postgres (metadata), S3 (FITS), Astrometry worker, auth.
TPT Client UI	TypeScript / React / Next.js + Three.js	Universal control dashboard, 3D sky visualization, real-time telemetry.
The "Relay" Protocol	Go	Crowdsourcing scheduling engine: assign targets to nodes by local night-time availability, stitch multi-node data.

Repository Layout

tpt-astrolink/
├── edge-agent/   # Rust workspace — TPT Edge Agent
├── cloud-core/   # Go modules — TPT Cloud Core
├── client-ui/    # Next.js app — TPT Client UI
├── relay/        # Go — Relay scheduling engine
├── docs/         # Spec, protocol & API contracts
├── infra/        # IaC, CI/CD, Docker, K8s
└── LICENSE-MIT / LICENSE-APACHE

Data Flow

Command: Web UI → WebSocket → Cloud Core (Go) → MQTT → Edge Agent (Rust) → FFI → INDI/ASCOM → Mount.
Telemetry: Edge Agent → MQTT → Cloud Core → WebSocket → Web UI.
Data: Edge Agent captures FITS → compresses → S3 → Cloud worker → Astrometry.net → Postgres.

                 ┌────────────┐
   Command ─────▶│  Client UI │──── WebSocket ────┐
                 │ (Next.js) │◀─── WebSocket ────┤
                 └────────────┘     Telemetry     │
                                                  ▼
                                          ┌────────────────┐
                                          │  Cloud Core    │
                                          │  (Go / Go)     │◀──┐
                                          └────────────────┘   │
                                               │  MQTT          │ S3
                                               ▼                │
                                        ┌─────────────┐        │
                                        │ Edge Agent  │────────┘
                                        │   (Rust)    │── FFI ──▶ INDI/ASCOM
                                        └─────────────┘

Architecture diagram is a placeholder; refine in docs/architecture.md.

Documentation

docs/protocols/websocket-contract.md — Cloud Core ↔ Client UI message schema.
docs/protocols/mqtt-contract.md — Cloud Core ↔ Edge Agent topic/payload schema.
docs/architecture.md — Full command/telemetry/data flow diagrams.

License

This project is dual-licensed under the MIT License and the Apache License 2.0. You may choose either license at your option.

See LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE for the full text.

tpt-astrolink

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