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Antenna Observatory

1090 MHz · live receiver

Antenna Observatory turns a Nooelec software-defined radio attached to a Mac into a public, mobile-friendly aircraft reception dashboard. The Mac decodes ADS-B and Mode S traffic, sends aircraft data directly to airplanes.live, and uploads telemetry through a protected ingest channel to a small remote server.

Open the dashboard Browse the source Open Skyglow

flowchart LR
    A[1090 MHz antenna] --> B[Nooelec NESDR]
    B --> C[readsb on Mac]
    C -->|BeastReduce+| D[airplanes.live]
    C --> E[Local collector]
    E -->|Protected HTTPS uplink| F[Remote relay]
    F --> G[(7-day history)]
    F --> H[Cloudflare Tunnel]
    H --> I[Public dashboard]

Find what you need

  • Build the receiver

Reproduce the complete Homebrew, RTL-SDR, readsb, airplanes.live, LaunchAgent, and keep-awake setup.

Mac setup

  • Understand the signals

Learn how ADS-B, Mode S, TIS-B, ADS-R, and Mode A/C are classified and measured.

Signal guide

  • Use the dashboard

Read live aircraft, signal power, receiver health, feed state, history, events, and raw telemetry.

Dashboard guide

  • Operate the system

Check services, interpret logs, recover a stale feed, deploy safely, and roll back a release.

Operations runbook

Skyglow uses the receiver as a multi-band observatory for aircraft, replay, airband and NOAA audio, Meteor satellite captures, and compatible wireless sensors. Its independent wiki covers those modes, its iPhone interface, and its own release history.

Open the Skyglow wiki Open Skyglow

Design goals

Goal How the project meets it
Keep radio work local The USB receiver and readsb remain on the Mac.
Keep airplanes.live independent readsb connects directly to the feed destination.
Make history available anywhere The relay stores a seven-day rolling sample history.
Protect receiver controls Read views are public; ingest uses a bearer token and settings remain local-only.
Recover automatically LaunchAgents, a keep-awake service, and the Linux supervisor restart failed processes.
Ship safely CI scans, tests, builds, budgets, deploys atomically, verifies, and can roll back.
Work on phones Responsive layouts, touch targets, reduced motion, and high-contrast radar amber styling.

One receiver, one frequency at a time

This receiver is dedicated to 1090 MHz aircraft traffic. Receiving FM, weather radio, airband voice, or 978 MHz UAT at the same time requires another receiver.