Question about remote imaging providers (Roboscope) Other · Marc · ... · 6 · 386 · 0

I'm in the US and if / when I sign up with a remote provider I'd go w/ folks having solid S. Hemisphere observatories…. Australia & Chili seem great.  Lots of gee-whiz-bang objects in the S. Hemi….  After that, a range of scope focal lengths and matching sensor specifics would be key…

Jim

andrea tasselli:
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I have used them in the past  and I was distinctly unimpressed by the level of feedback, user intervention and the quality of the output, which I considered to be mediocre. This said, things might have moved on but I no loner use them. Spanish weather can be quite fickle at times and you might not get a lot of clear night this time of the year. Personally, whenever I need images from the boreal sky I use Skygems. Not perfect but at least good enough in terms of time/money.

Thanks, good point about the southern hemisphere -and thanks for sharing your experiences. with Roboscope - exactly what I was looking for. 

I am the kind of person who likes to pay once and then be able to use a service, rather than paying per use. Just a pet-peeve, I suppose. So I would prefer something that is more like a subscription-style setup. Skygems is probably not a good fit in that regard.

There is of course DeepSkyWest, but they are not cheap and not based in the EU - so that would not be my first choice obviously.

I have signed up with itelescope.net at the low end plan for 40USD.

Sofar not yet any image aquisition experience as the telescope, I want to use is in Spain and there is rain and clouds currently.

However. what I found out is that your plan expires after about one month - at least the one for 40USD - so you are required to use the credits up within that timeframe. If you enroll for the large 1000USD plan, what I understand, the dredits do not expire.

They have telescopes in Spain, Utah, Australia and Chile - but from what I see, many of them are either in maintenance or closed due to weather (clouds, wind) oder reserved. If you can accept a reservation about 8-10days ahead, it works fine, there is room and open slots.

The darks, flats, flatdarks, biases of all telescopes are available for all involed filters and binnings. Will be interesting to look at the aquired subs - they say, that the subs, they deliver to you can either be pre-calibrated or raw to let you calibrate them yourself.

The price/credits range for those telescopes is very different, depending on the size and the outfit but you can find something affordable as well. If you of course want to use their 40" astrograph, it is costly.

Anyway, I wait and see, if I can get my imaging project done and then I can tell you more about the quality of the images etc.

CS,
Georg
-in Lower Austria - under clouds, fog and drizzle :-(