Visual Design
Bands and blocks on live pages. Theme, top menu, footer. On a phone the public menu becomes a hamburger.
For amateur astronomical societies
The society website your committee can actually run
Public site, members portal, and officer admin in one hosted platform — talks, observing, gallery, sky widgets, e-card, shop and tickets. Built for UK societies, not a generic club template.
Try the sample society first. Hosting is £35 / month rolling when the committee is ready — or £385 / year.
Society websites
Built for people who live for dark skies
You already put the hours in at the hall and on the rec. Astronomy Host treats programme and observing as different things — newcomers find the next talk, members find the next clear night.
Members and e-card
Applications, invite, approvals. On-screen membership card plus print for a badge pouch, with door QR.
Sky feeds
Moon, twilight, ISS, aurora, planets, Bortle, astro calendar — from the society observing pin.
Meetings and tickets
Programme with CSV, iCal, Repeat copies. Shop for sale, hire, and tickets. Phone-camera door check-in.
Gallery and media
Library with folders; images stored as thumb, medium, and full. Member photos go through approval.
Officers and hosting
Permission roles, optional 2FA, society SMTP, backups, hosting-support tickets. Officers never see Developer tools.
Membership dues stay in the society’s own accounts. Astronomy Host is the website and portal, not a till or bookkeeping package. Society shop card payments use the club’s own Stripe or PayPal keys — never the hosting account.
Live demo
No signup needed. Explore the real platform.
A working sample society (Riverside Astronomical Society). On the locked visitor copy, save, publish, uploads, checkout, and form sends are off so the sample stays as packed.
- Browse the public site
- Read about this demo for logins and what you can click through
- Open officer admin (password on every account:
demo) - Try the members portal from the same login screen
- When the committee agrees, apply for hosting — month-to-month, no long tie-in
Hosting
Hosting that stays out of the way
We run the platform. You run the society. Point a domain when you are ready, invite the committee, then get on with the season. Card checkout for hosting (Stripe) is the next commercial step — signup today files an application for ops. The terms & policies pack is already published.
Standard hosting
£35 / month
or £385 / year prepay (~£32.08/mo if you prepay)
- Hosted society website + officer admin
- Members portal, e-card, Design, sky widgets
- Custom forms, gallery, sponsors, shop and tickets
- 5 GB storage (site + uploads)
- HTTPS, updates, UK business days — hosting and platform faults
- Downloadable backups
- You connect society SMTP when mail is needed
Prices are the intended public offer. Stripe Checkout for hosting is not connected in this build — applications land in the operator console.
| Extra storage | £5 / month per +5 GB |
|---|---|
| Bring your own domain | £0 / month (no extra monthly domain fee) |
| Domain register + DNS | Quoted at checkout (later) |
| Webmaster / migration help | Quoted |
FAQ
Straight answers
- Do we need technical skills?
- No. Officers use guided admin: pages, media, meetings, forms, shop, backups. You do not need a developer on the committee. Dues and accounts are not part of this site.
- Can we use our own domain?
- Yes. Bring your own domain (DNS checklist) at £0 extra per month, or register one with us when domain checkout is live. Until then, societies can run on an Astronomy Host subdomain.
- How does hosting payment work?
- Public signup, then card checkout, then we provision the site. Hosting Stripe is not wired in this build. Completing signup sends an application to ops. Shop card payments on a live society are separate: the committee pastes their own Stripe or PayPal keys under Shop → Settings.
- How does email work?
- You connect the society’s own SMTP (Microsoft 365, Google, Zoho, ISP). Invites, forms, and shop mail use that mailbox. There is no platform mail fallback. Newsletter is a paste-embed from whoever you already use — Astronomy Host does not send campaigns.
- Do you collect membership subs?
- No. Categories and advertised amounts can show on join forms. Payment stays in the society’s own accounts.
- Is this only for UK societies?
- Built first for UK amateur astronomy (charity numbers, UK English, UK meeting culture). Societies elsewhere can host; country is chosen at signup.
About
About Astronomy Host
A multi-tenant platform for amateur astronomical societies, university astro groups, and observing clubs. One codebase, many isolated society sites. Faraday Keynes Ltd T/A Astronomy Host.
The public face is a living society website. The operator console is how hosting is actually switched on — not a “create a test club” button on the brochure. Paying societies use Admin → Hosting support for platform faults.
Contact
Talk to Astronomy Host
Ask about hosting, migration from an old society site, or whether this fits your committee. We reply on UK business days.
Prefer email?