Development Progress

Building C42.
In the open.

C42 is still in development. This is our open log: where it came from, what’s already working in our beta builds, what we’re building next, and the launch we’re counting down to.

Last updated

  1. Chapter 01 · 2012 – 2025

    The long road.

    Long before C42 had a name, two amateur astronomers were building the camera they couldn’t buy.

  2. 2012

    The first attempt

    Dr. Shen Feichen and Chen Song tried to build their own astronomy camera. It didn’t work out, but the idea stuck.

  3. 2014

    Raw data from Nikon DSLRs

    Dr. Shen unlocked true raw sensor readout on Nikon cameras. His firmware patches spread through the astrophotography community.

  4. 2017

    A camera built by hand

    A custom FPGA camera, designed board by board, was featured on Hackaday and saw first light that summer.

    Read the Hackaday story ↗
    An early hand-built astronomy camera with an exposed FPGA board and ribbon cables
    The hand-built FPGA camera, 2017.

  5. 2018

    Guiding with the imaging sensor

    The first working GWI™ readout. Years later, it became the on-sensor guiding inside C42.

  6. 2020

    Where C42 begins

    A full-frame sensor, reverse-engineered without a datasheet. The two founders started talking about a company.

  7. 2023

    The first prototype

    An engineering prototype came together in November. By December, cooling worked.

    A black engineering-prototype camera body with a large round sensor window on a workbench
    First engineering prototype, November 2023.

  8. 2024

    Under a total eclipse

    A prototype went up on a telescope for the April 8 solar eclipse.

    A prototype cooled camera with twin fans attached to a lens on a telescope outdoors
    Prototype on a telescope for the April 2024 eclipse.

  9. 2025

    C42 takes shape

    The first C42 prototype was assembled in June. Camera, mount, touchscreen, and app were designed as one system.

    A hand holding the first C42 prototype camera with its full-frame sensor exposed
    The first C42 prototype, June 2025.

  10. Chapter 02 · 2026

    Into the field.

    Prototypes left the lab and C42 went to a small group of beta testers. Every month they received a new build. These aren’t public releases, but they’re the clearest record of what’s already built.

  11. Mar – Apr 2026

    Out in the field

    Field testing in Yunnan and Death Valley, and a public showing at NAB Show.

  12. May – Jun 2026

    Into other people’s hands

    The first systems went to photographers and creators, who started shooting with C42 and telling us what to fix.

  13. V0.1

    July 2026

    The first complete night.

    Connect, choose a target, align, focus, capture, and export. The whole night, end to end.

    Connect and sync
    Bluetooth discovery, Wi-Fi setup, and location and time sync.
    Find and track
    Sky-map targeting, plate solving, polar alignment, and PULSAR GoTo and tracking.
    Capture and focus
    Exposure, gain, and cooling control. FITS and DNG files. Autofocus with a magnified check.
    Maintain
    Wi-Fi and Ethernet export, plus over-the-air updates for camera, mount, CAA, and status display.

  14. V0.2

    August 2026

    See, focus, and frame.

    Live View arrives, the camera learns to rotate itself, and focusing moves onto the touchscreen.

    Live View
    A real-time preview with zoom, for framing and focusing with foreground in the shot.
    Closed-loop camera rotation
    The Camera Angle Adjuster reads absolute angles from an encoder. No homing, with automatic framing.
    Focusing on the touchscreen
    Star-width measurement and full-range autofocus.
    Alignment and storage
    Better polar alignment at short focal lengths, SSD formatting, and USB export.

  15. V0.3

    September 2026

    A home for your images.

    An album for everything you shoot, dark-frame calibration, and steadier mount control.

    Album
    Originals and processed images side by side, with tags, favorites, editing, and capture details.
    Dark-frame calibration
    Factory dark frames or your own, with a light-leak check.
    Mount control
    Zenith-limit fixes, mount-side meridian flips, and USB-C power through the mount.
    Everyday workflow
    Post-capture histograms, Wi-Fi modes, file naming, and smoother updates.

  16. V0.4

    Late September 2026

    Testing now

    Plan the night. Process the results.

    Guiding, sequences, and stacking. Our biggest build so far, now in our beta testers’ hands.

    Integrated guiding
    Guiding built into the capture flow, with alerts and automatic retries if the guide star is lost.
    Sequence shooting
    Set up groups of shots once and let them run through the night.
    Post-capture stacking
    Pick frames in the album and stack them on the camera, with preview and histogram.
    Full calibration set
    Flat and bias frames join darks.
    Faster polar alignment
    Two coarse methods: guided by the touchscreen’s sensors, or by a single bright star.
    Photo sharing
    Send photos from the touchscreen to a phone with a QR code or NFC.

  17. You are here ·

    Still building. Every day.

    C42 is still in development. Our beta testers are shooting with V0.4 while we keep refining guiding, sequences, and stacking, and work on everything below.

  1. Chapter 03 · Launch

    Launching on

    Kickstarter

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  2. Chapter 04 · The flight plan

    What we’re building next.

    This is direction, not a list of delivery dates. A feature gets a date once it’s working on test hardware.

  3. Software in development

    Updates from October 2026

    One-tap mosaics
    Framing guides, capture-path planning, rotation compensation, a live stitched preview, and re-shooting of selected tiles.
    Complete meridian flips
    Capture pauses for the flip, resumes after, and the CAA re-aligns the frame.
    Stacking on the touchscreen
    Rotation-aware alignment as frames download, with the result building up live.
    Calibration after capture
    Apply darks and flats in the album without touching the original.
    Workflow import and export
    Save a capture workflow as a file and move it between devices.

    Hardware in development

    Ahead of production

    Stronger signals
    Steadier Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and faster GPS fixes.
    Sensors in the mount
    An IMU and compass for faster setup and alignment.

    Next up

    No dates yet

    Smarter limit alerts
    Know whether a mount limit will clear on its own, then resume shooting automatically.
    Advanced sequences
    Overlapping time windows and more flexible combinations.
    HDR controls in the app
    The HDR engine is finished and field-proven: it captured the August 12 eclipse in Spain. Next, we build its controls into the app.
    One time source
    The touchscreen and camera on a single clock.

    Planned

    Direction set

    Anti-dew status
    See the camera window’s anti-dew state in the app.
    Temperature-controlled fan
    Fan speed that follows body temperature.

  4. February 2027 · estimated

    The first systems ship.

    Final production and logistics set the exact timing. We’ll share every step along the way.

  5. And then

    Your first night with C42.

    The journey doesn’t end at delivery. New features keep arriving as updates, shaped by what you tell us from the field.

Walk the rest of the road with us.

We’ll keep this log updated as the work moves. Questions, ideas, or a feature you need? Bring them to our Facebook Group.

Join our Facebook Group ↗ Meet the team →