Claudestronomy: a $50K program funding anyone using AI agents to mine public sky survey data
willdepue · x · 2026-11-12
Claudestronomy, launched by macrogrants, is a $50,000 program offering GPUs, model credits (Claude/Codex/Grok/Gemini) and a community group chat to anyone who wants to use AI agents to find new objects in public sky survey data. No application form — just text or email what you want to look for; complete astronomy beginners are welcome.
- Why it works: TESS, Gaia, ZTF, DECam and WISE data are all freely public; past searches were limited by their designed parameters, and cross-matching archives can reveal what neither shows alone. People are already doing this with just a laptop and an agent.
- Support: help requesting telescope time if a candidate earns it; calibrated non-detections with completeness curves also count as valuable results.
- Safeguards: the organizers stress not inundating astronomy institutions with slop, building a community around doing discovery correctly, and funding rehosting of datasets that may struggle under mass downloads.
The project is independent of Anthropic/OpenAI/xAI/Google. macrogrants itself is a new 501(c)(3)-pending nonprofit giving $500–$25,000 grants approved in a day or two.
Related event: macrogrants launches $50K Claudestronomy grant for AI-driven astronomy(2 posts)→
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