Privacy at Clearhour
Clearhour stores your account, supported planning data, and your session photos so they can follow you across your own devices. We don't sell or share your data with advertisers, we don't run ad trackers, and we don't use advertising cookies. A short list of hosting, weather, mapping, and imagery services receives the information needed to deliver the service or answer a request — such as a site coordinate for its forecast.
- Your data is walled off at the database level so only your own signed-in account can read or write it — not just hidden in the app's interface.
- You can permanently delete your account and everything in it, any time, from the app itself.
- Clearhour is private-preview beta software built by one person. This page is written in plain language and covers real practices, but it isn't a substitute for a lawyer's review if you need one for your own purposes.
What Clearhour stores, at a glance
| Data | What it is | Why Clearhour has it | Your control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account | Email address, optional display name | Signing in, identifying your data as yours | Editable in-app; deletable with your account |
| Plans & projects | Targets, projects, scheduled sessions, calendar entries, and associated site or rig details | The core planning features you're using Clearhour for | Stored locally; supported records also sync when signed in; deletable with your account |
| Session photos | Images you attach to a logged session | Your personal astrophotography library, viewable across your devices | Stored privately per-account; deletable with your account |
| Site coordinates | Latitude/longitude of locations you plan from | Every forecast, dark-sky, and visibility calculation needs a real location | Stays in your own account data; never shown publicly unless you choose to share a site |
| Reliability diagnostics | Fixed error, sync, upload, and app-open status codes; app version; browser family; online state; and time | Finding failures during the private preview | On by default for signed-in accounts; switch it off from the account menu |
| Session replay | Not collected | Clearhour does not record or replay your screen | No session-replay system is installed or active |
| Cookies | None | — | Nothing to control |
| Payment info | None collected today | Clearhour doesn't charge for anything yet | — |
Your account and sign-in
Clearhour's beta is invite-only. When you're invited, you set up an account with your email — either a password, a one-time sign-in link, or both. That's handled by Supabase, the authentication and database service Clearhour runs on; Clearhour never sees or stores your password itself in a way any human could read.
If you add a first name, it's shown in the app's account menu instead of your email, purely so it feels more like your own space — it isn't used anywhere else.
Your plans, gear, and session library
Everything you build in Clearhour — targets you're tracking, project plans, sessions you've logged, future plans on your calendar, and equipment information attached to those records — is yours. It is kept on your device first so Clearhour can keep working offline. When you're signed in, the app automatically syncs supported account, project, calendar, and session-library records. Some standalone device preferences or gear presets may remain only in that browser during the private preview.
Photos you attach to a session are stored in a private cloud folder scoped to your account alone — no other Clearhour user or the public can browse it. Access to a specific photo is granted through a link that's cryptographically signed and expires on its own shortly after it's issued, rather than a permanent public URL.
Location and site data
Astrophotography planning doesn't work without a real location — every forecast, dark-sky estimate, and target-visibility calculation Clearhour shows you is computed for the exact coordinates of the site you've selected. Those coordinates are stored as part of your own account data, the same as your plans and gear. They're never made public unless you choose to share a specific site through Community.
Outside services Clearhour talks to
To operate accounts, store photos, deliver the site, and answer questions like "what's the weather at this site tonight" or "how dark is the sky here," Clearhour uses a small number of outside services. They may receive routine connection information such as your IP address and browser details; data services also receive the coordinate, search term, or map tile needed for the specific request.
See the actual list
Open-Meteo — weather forecasts and location search, using the site coordinates you're planning from.
NASA GIBS — satellite night-sky-brightness imagery, used to estimate light pollution (Bortle class) at a location; from a 2012 satellite survey, disclosed as such in the app.
RainViewer — live radar map tiles.
CARTO — background map tiles.
BigDataCloud — turns coordinates into a readable place name (reverse geocoding).
Wikipedia & the Aladin/DSS2 sky survey — thumbnail images for deep-sky targets in the catalog; these are about the target, not about you.
Google Fonts — the typefaces this page and the app use.
Supabase — account authentication and synced database records.
Backblaze B2 — private storage for session images.
Netlify — website hosting and delivery.
Public astronomy, mapping, and weather requests do not intentionally include your Clearhour name, email, or account identifier. Account, storage, and hosting providers necessarily process the account or technical information needed to provide their part of the service.
Reliability diagnostics and research contact Beta
Signed-in private-preview accounts send a deliberately small set of reliability events by default:
- Included: app opened; JavaScript error; sync, network, or photo-upload failure; affected system area; a short non-personal status code; app version; browser family; online/offline state; and time.
- Never included: exact or coarse coordinates, targets, rigs, sites, images, filenames, notes, URLs, entered text, error messages, stack traces, or a full browser user-agent string.
- Your control: turn reliability diagnostics off or on at any time from the account menu.
Research email is a separate, optional choice. Clearhour does not install session-replay software, record your screen, or reconstruct your interactions.
How your data is protected
Clearhour's database enforces row-level security — a rule, checked on every single request by the database itself, that your account can only ever read or write rows that belong to your own account. This isn't just something the app's interface hides from you; it's enforced underneath the interface, so even a request that skipped the app's own UI couldn't reach another user's data.
Photo access works the same way, through short-lived signed links rather than permanent public URLs, and the one credential capable of reaching the underlying photo storage is held only on Clearhour's server side — it's never sent to your browser.
Deleting your account
You can permanently delete your account at any time from the account menu in the app: Sign out / Delete account…. Deleting removes every photo you've stored, every synced plan and session record, and your account itself — this can't be undone, so the app asks you to confirm before it happens.
Waitlist information
If you request access on clearhour.io, Clearhour receives your email address and any optional name, setup details, or message you provide. That information is used to manage private-preview access and contact you about your request.
Retention
Account data is retained while your account is active and as reasonably needed to operate and secure the private preview, resolve support or legal issues, and maintain required records. Waitlist and support information is retained while it remains useful for those purposes. More specific retention periods will be added as the service matures.
Cookies, browser storage, and advertising
Clearhour doesn't run advertising trackers or use personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. It uses browser local storage and authentication storage to keep you signed in, preserve preferences, and support offline and synced features.
Clearhour does not currently respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals because there is no generally accepted standard for interpreting them. This does not change Clearhour's policy of not selling personal information or using it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
Children
The private preview is not directed to children under 13, and Clearhour does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Clearhour does not ask for age or date of birth and, by design, does not ordinarily know how old its users are. If you believe an account belongs to a child under 13, contact Clearhour so the account and its information can be removed.
Changes to this notice
This notice may be updated as the private preview changes. Material changes will be identified by a new “Last updated” date and, when appropriate, an in-app notice.
Beta status, and being honest about limits
Clearhour is private-preview beta software, built and operated by one person rather than a company with a dedicated legal or security team. Everything on this page reflects how Clearhour actually works today, verified directly against its code rather than written from a generic template — but it's written for clarity, not as a legal document, and beta software can change. If you need certainty for your own compliance purposes (for example, under GDPR or a similar law where you live), talk to a lawyer rather than relying on this page alone.
Questions or requests
For anything about your data — a question, a request, or help with account deletion if you run into trouble — email chris@clearhour.io directly.