diff --git a/.envs/.local/.django b/.envs/.local/.django
index 8eb5610f7..36568b3e1 100644
--- a/.envs/.local/.django
+++ b/.envs/.local/.django
@@ -19,6 +19,11 @@ NATS_URL=nats://nats:4222
 CELERY_FLOWER_USER=QSocnxapfMvzLqJXSsXtnEZqRkBtsmKT
 CELERY_FLOWER_PASSWORD=BEQgmCtgyrFieKNoGTsux9YIye0I7P5Q7vEgfJD2C4jxmtHDetFaE2jhS7K7rxaf
 
+# Celery worker concurrency (prefork pool size).
+# Default in settings is 8. Lower to 2-4 on memory-constrained dev laptops —
+# each prefork worker is a separate Python process with its own DB connection.
+# CELERY_WORKER_CONCURRENCY=4
+
 # RabbitMQ
 CELERY_BROKER_URL=amqp://rabbituser:rabbitpass@rabbitmq:5672/
 CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND=rpc:// # Use RabbitMQ for results backend
diff --git a/.envs/.production/.django-example b/.envs/.production/.django-example
index 93737d527..c30d88dc0 100644
--- a/.envs/.production/.django-example
+++ b/.envs/.production/.django-example
@@ -20,6 +20,13 @@ REDIS_URL=redis://redis:6379/0
 # Celery
 # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
+# Worker concurrency (prefork pool size). Settings default is 8.
+# Recommended for production: 16 on an 8-core host — process_nats_pipeline_result
+# and create_detection_images are DB/Redis-bound, so ~2x cpu_count roughly matches
+# observed drain vs ingress on the antenna queue without saturating pgbouncer.
+# Tune higher only after confirming postgres connection-pool headroom.
+CELERY_WORKER_CONCURRENCY=16
+
 # Flower
 CELERY_FLOWER_USER=
 CELERY_FLOWER_PASSWORD=
diff --git a/config/settings/base.py b/config/settings/base.py
index c3a8750dc..5877d3406 100644
--- a/config/settings/base.py
+++ b/config/settings/base.py
@@ -393,6 +393,16 @@ def _celery_result_backend_url(redis_url):
 CELERY_WORKER_PREFETCH_MULTIPLIER = 1
 CELERY_WORKER_ENABLE_PREFETCH_COUNT_REDUCTION = True
 
+# Worker concurrency (prefork pool size)
+# https://docs.celeryq.dev/en/stable/userguide/configuration.html#worker-concurrency
+# Celery's own default when unset is os.cpu_count(), which on the production
+# 8-core host produced an 8-process pool that could not keep up with the antenna
+# queue's DB/Redis-bound tasks (process_nats_pipeline_result, create_detection_images).
+# 8 is a conservative default that keeps local/staging/demo memory footprints
+# reasonable (each prefork worker is a separate Python process with imports +
+# DB connection). Production should override to 16 (see .envs/.production/.django-example).
+CELERY_WORKER_CONCURRENCY = env.int("CELERY_WORKER_CONCURRENCY", default=8)
+
 # Cancel & return to queue if connection is lost
 # https://docs.celeryq.dev/en/latest/userguide/configuration.html#worker-cancel-long-running-tasks-on-connection-loss
 CELERY_WORKER_CANCEL_LONG_RUNNING_TASKS_ON_CONNECTION_LOSS = True