Welcome to INDIGO

INDIGO is a system of standards and frameworks for multiplatform and distributed astronomy software development designed to scale with your needs.

For users

Just start your favorite INDIGO powered application on your favorite operating system and use your astro gadgets. INDIGO will find and configure most of them for you automatically and even if it is not possible, it will help you to do it easily.

If you want to use some kind of distributed setup, just start INDIGO server on remote machine and let it detect connected devices. They will be discovered by client applications the same way as if they will be connected directly to your desktop.

We believe, that the first astro hardware with network connection and built-in INDIGO server will be available soon. Read more »


For developers

INDIGO is a kind of distributed software bus connecting device drivers on one side and application code on another.

You can link device drivers (dynamic libraries) directly to your application developed in any programming language (INDIGO itself is written in pure C to make it as compatible as possible), load them on demand or to let application to connect to drivers on remote INDIGO server.

You can develop web based application and use JSON/websocket based protocol to communicate with local or remote server as well.

INDIGO is open source project, but it can be used for free under business friendly license.Read more »


For vendors

If you are hardware manufacturer, INDIGO can help you to make your devices compatible with any INDIGO or INDI powered application on any Unix based operating system including Linux and Apple macOS. Also INDIGO for .Net and INDIGO-ASCOM bridge for interoperability with Windows clients is available.

If your device can be connected over any kind of network connection, you can embed INDIGO server to your CCD camera, mount controller or other device to make it discoverable and accessible directly from any application.

Supported hardware

Device drivers included in INDIGO binary distributions for Linux (32/64 bit Intel and ARM) and macOS. All drivers are tested with some, but not necessary with all compatible devices.

  • Atik CCD and EFW2 filter wheel drivers
  • StarlightXpress CCD, filter wheel and AO drivers
  • FLI CCD, filter wheel driver and focuser drivers
  • ZWO ASI CCD, filter wheel, focuser and guider drivers
  • SBIG CCD and filter wheel drivers
  • Shoestring FCUSB, GPUSB and DSUSB drivers
  • IIDC CCD driver (compatible USB 2.0+ or FireWire cameras
  • UVC CCD driver (compatible USB video class cameras, SVBONY SV205, ...
  • SSAG/QHY5, QHY, Andor, Apogee, Meade DSI, QSI, Moravian Instruments, AltairAstro, ToupTek and other CCD drivers
  • NexStar and NexStarAUX mount drivers (Celestron, SkyWatcher, Orion, ...)
  • LX200 mount driver (Meade, EQMac, 10Microns, Gemini, Avalon, ...)
  • Takahashi Temma, iOptron, SynScan (EQDir), PMC8, RainbowAstro and other mount drivers
  • Brightstar Quantum, QHY CFW, Trutek, Xagyl, Optec and other wheel drivers
  • USB_Focus V3, Pegasus DMFC, RigelSys nStep and nFocus, MoonLite, RoboFocus, Optec, LakesideAstro, Deep Sky Dad AF1/AF2, Baader Planetarium SteelDrive II, AstroGadget FocusDreamPro, ASCOM Jolo, Seletek, Armadillo, Platypus, Limpet and other focuser drivers
  • WeMacro and MJKZZ rail drivers
  • PlaneWave and Celestron focuser drivers
  • Seletek, Armadillo, Platypus and Limpet rotator drivers
  • HID Joystick driver
  • NMEA GPS driver
  • Pegasus Pocket and Ultimate Powerbox driver
  • Artesky flat box, Pegasus FlatMaster, Lacerta Flat Box and Optec Flip-Flap drivers
  • USB Dewpoint V1 & 2 driver
  • Unihedron SQM driver
  • Canon EOS and Nikon DSLRs and with some limitations Sony Alpha cameras
  • ASCOL and Andor driver
  • NexDome, Baader and Lunatico Astronomy Dragonfly dome drivers
and more are under development, see full list.

Compatible software

Applications compatible with INDIGO. So far most of them use legacy INDI protocol to communicate with the drivers.

  • AstroImager, AstroGuider, AstroDSLR, AstroTelescope, INDIGO Control Panel and INDIGO Dashboard
  • PixInsight (INDIGO)
  • APT - Astro Photography Tool (INDIGO)
  • iINDI (INDI)
  • KStars and EKOS (INDI)
  • XEphem (INDI)
  • Cartes du Ciel (INDI)
  • CCDCiel(INDI)
  • .Net client and ASCOM bridges for INDIGO Camera and Filter Wheel
  • indigo_cffi (Python interface for INDIGO)

Under development

Applications, device drivers and other tools under development. Much more is on TODO list and will come later.

  • ASCOM bridges for INDIGO mount and focuser
  • Apogee filter wheel driver