Noctaves
Moonshots have a habit of requiring a few iterations before succeeding and ours is no exception. Although we have processed millions of moonshot photos (months of recording) Lunaves is still on the bench: camera modules, telescope optics, digiscoped arrangements — each prototype fails in its own instructive way. Things break. Recordings come back empty. We learn something, and build the next one.
Getting a glimpse of a bird against the moon is harder than it sounds. But the nights when it works are worth every rebuild.
Moon-watching makes nocturnal migration visible, if only for a moment. Much like a shooting star, it's a brief line across the light, gone before you're quite sure you saw it. But it isn't just wonder — it's measurable too. Campaigns record thousands of migrants, tracking traffic rates and seasonal shifts.
Lunaves sits at that intersection: a tool to admire these passing silhouettes, while also revealing migration patterns and behavioral changes influenced by factors such as climate change.
Set it up once and let Lunaves do the rest. It automatically finds the moon, tracks it across the sky, and begins recording at the right moment. When the session ends, it parks itself and waits for the next night.
Clouds rolling in? No problem. Lunaves pauses and resumes as soon as the sky clears. The system is weather-proof, requiring only occasional lens cleaning to stay sharp.
Lunaves doesn't just record — it understands. It detects birds crossing the moon, isolates each pass-through event, and saves both the video clip and key flight data such as direction and timing.
All results are instantly accessible through the Noctaves portal and mobile app, so you can review migration activity without digging through hours of footage.
Birds move fast — so Lunaves records faster. Video is captured at 60 frames per second in HD (1280 × 720) to preserve flight paths and silhouettes with precision.
While species identification is still challenging at this scale, distinctive silhouettes can already be recognised when conditions are right — and the data is ready for future improvements.
Tracking birds against the moon is like finding needles in a haystack — and Lunaves does it for you. Advanced processing extracts migration events shortly after capture, typically within minutes and at most within an hour.
Migration events are delivered while the night is still unfolding, giving you actionable data when it matters most.
| Cameras | Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera & Raspberry Pi v2 |
| Processing | Raspberry Pi 4 2GB |
| Telescope | Celestron TravelScope 70 AZ |
| Pan-tilt mount | Skywatcher - Acuter MERLIN |
Message us.