Euan

Hi folks Been away from here for a long, long time. Don't do much Astronomy these days, and have a silly amount of iTelescope points going spare If anyone is interested, drop me a PM Thanks Euan

A good read for people as well, the latest newsletter http://www.itelescope.net/itelescopenet-newsletter Showcasing the 0.7m monster that is due for SSO

Oh no, someone noticed I'm in the process of selling a lot of expensive kit, which will fund this for a few years, but aye if you want to get serious it can be expensive. I got the maximum plan in February as they ran a double points promotion due to SSO being closed during the recent bush fires in Australia. I'm dropping to Plan 290 after this. The points roll over but my rate per scope will drop unfortunately. I'm not convinced I could actually deal with 1000 points per month, it's just too much data to process!!

I'm really impressed with the positivity in this thread since the last time I posted about this subject, are the UK conditions finally getting to people? Here is a list of major plus points for me so far if anyone is on the fence..... Use kit you could never afford in a place you might never visit (great point mentioned above) Image almost any part of the sky - I've learned loads about Southern objects the past few weeks Have access to any filter on a huge range of fields of view, the possibilities are endless Image 12 months a year! No more 6 months of downtime in Scotland and further north Stop yourself getting bogged down with technical issues and concentrate on learning about the night sky Separate imaging from observing, at least you don't sit under a clear sky looking at a laptop Spend more time learning about image processing Join a community that includes some world class imagers (Damien Peach, etc) Sleep. If you have a busy life / job you will notice a huge difference with this, beneficial to your health overall. Schedule you time, again helps with a busy life Social life. Spend the afternoon imaging, then go out and enjoy yourself! This pointed nailed it for me, there has been so many times I can't image because of commitments

That depends on how deep you want to go and what type of image you take. To give you an example though, I'm pretty sure the Ha Carina I did there was on the starter trial points.

How it works Here is a snapshot of the iTelescope dashboard at the moment, you see this when you log in. This allows you to see the status of each of the sites and go into each of the scopes. You can either reserve a time on a scope or just dive in if something is available, you can see here I've started on T12 as it is free for half an hour between bookings. This also displays any warning messages if a system goes offline because of a fault (T9 in this case) You can see here New Mexico has just gone offline, Spain is also asleep but Oz is off and running. You can have access to scopes 24/7 if the weather is good at all the sites. When you go into one of the scopes you are then onto using ACP on the PC connected to it. From here you can build imaging plans, make reservations or launch previously saved plans. Here is what I'm doing at the moment, you see lots of feedback of what is going on At the end of your plan, you are emailed a quite detailed receipt showing how much points you used, snapshots of all the weather conditions, JPEG previews of your subs, and you are given FTP access to your data. This comes in the form of un-calibrated and calibrated FIT files. You get access to all the calibration files and you can do this yourself, but I've found the calibrated files to be really good. How much does it cost? You have to be on a subscription plan to use it, these vary from $19.95 AUS (£13.74) to $999.00 AUS (£687.96) per 28 days. There are a range of these plans, giving different numbers of points to spend. Each scope has a different "points-per-hour" rating, this also changes dynamically depending on what plan you are on and what the current illumination and position of the moon is. The higher the plan you are on, the cheaper in points each scope is. The brightness of the moon in the FOV can get you an up to 50% discount of the scope rates, great for narrowband. You can try it for free, but this only gives you access to the one shot colour CCDs at each site, I would highly recommend the starter-trial at $19.95. You can top this up just by buying more points as well rather than going to a bigger plan. You can cancel at any point as well. It's worth signing up and just watching what people are doing on each of the scopes as you can see everything they see, including previews of images taken. Other points One of the hardest things I've found, especially with navigating the southern sky, is knowing what is where and when. This is when you need a really good planetarium program. I've bought TheSkyX Pro for this, and it's great for planning imaging runs, it can also plate solve images to help with pointing. Also, TheSkyX is great for keeping track of timezones. You can have a serious brain malfunction trying to work out imaging times and booking slots relative to the time in the UK! If you are even remotely interested (no pun intended), give it a go as for less than £15 you have nothing to lose. Just remember to cancel your plan if you decide it's not for you http://www.itelescope.net

At last! Someone who gets it I'm on my phone just now but will post up a wee guide later...

I've spent the past month packing up and selling all my imaging gear, and I thought I would post an update for those it might interest. I know for a lot of people, having your own gear and doing your own thing is irreplaceable, but there are so many people on the fringes of serious imaging that have the money to put into it but not necessarily the time or the technical knowledge. It's also perfect to cure those UK weather blues or summertime frustrations. This is all done on iTelescope.net (formally GRAS), a network of scopes on three sites (New Mexico, Spain & Australia) with two news sites in Greece and California in the works. It all hangs together using ACP, which is a great interface for imaging. You subscribe to month plans which give you points you can spend on the different scopes, usually the higher performance the more points it costs. Its hard to describe just how bizarre and satisfying it was on Sunday afternoon past to sit down to do some imaging looking a completely clear Australian skies and start to pull an image together as the subs rolled in. I've just spent my first 100 points, which at the moment equates to $100 Australian Dollars, so around £70. I've spent most of my time on the Carina Nebula from Siding Springs Observatory in Australia, as it's just too fascinating an object not too. What you see below is the result of that and also some test single subs I've taken of other objects. Keep in mind the shortness of the exposure numbers and lengths is only really possible due to awesome kit in an awesome location. So here we begin, NGC 3372 The Carina Nebula in RGB (4 x 5 mins per colour) Taken on T12: http://www.itelescop.../telescope-t12/ Next, the same again in Narrowband (Hubble Palette, 4 x 5mins per colour) Same again, Ha only (4 x 5 mins). There is a slight gradient in this I had to get back too.... Next, some single 5 min sub test shots on T12 again in Ha, prizes for recognising them.... Last but not least, a 5 min Ha test sub on T11, which is a 20" Planewave CDK absolute beast of a scope. This is stunning considering a full moon was nearby.... http://www.itelescop.../telescope-t11/

Going to go back and get OIII and SII, it will be interesting to see what signal level I can get out of 5 min subs

Edited to take the slight gradient out, bit better this time

Managed to do a full session on the cone for the first time and forgot to focus! It makes it a bit soft and stars bloated. Oh well, live and learn. Added the core to an earlier M42 image, but I'm struggling with the processing, and it seems to have added to the overall noise compared to the original Here are the details: Camera: Atik 383L+ Mono with Astrodon 5nm Ha Scope: Borg 101EDII with 0.7x Reducer @ F4.4 Mount: EQ6 with EQMOD Guiding: OAG with QHY5 Capture Software: CCD Commander, Maxim DL Processing Software: Deep Sky Stacker, PixInsight Exposure: Cone - 12 x 15 mins, M42 - 6 x 15 mins, 12 x 60 secs, 12 x 30 secs, 12 x 10 secs (HDR) Calibration: No Bias, 25 x Darks, 25 x Flats

I've always been tempted by the whole remote imaging thing, so I took the plunge and got a starter trial for iTelescope (www.itelescope.net) This is 5 x 5mins (25 mins) on the Carina Nebula I took just about an hour ago (it's 3pm here in the UK). A very quick process as well, but the data is so good it really doesn't need much. I will get a bigger review up when I have more time, but this gives you an idea of what is possible. Here is T12, being a widefield fan it's pretty much what I would buy if I won the lottery. It's not even the fast FSQ this is only F5! Here is a small and the "actual size" version for some scrolling madness....

Wow, that's a bit special Have you got a bigger version uploaded? OIII and SII? Yes please!

I've been imaging a lot recently, which is unusual for me, it's about time I got my finger out! Got some EQ6 problems, and also had to switch back to the good old guide scope from an OAG as it wasn't working for me, so these aren't as sharp as they could be. It's getting stripped down again next week. These are the captures over the past few weeks, here are the overall details: Camera: Atik 383L+ Mono with Astrodon 5nm Ha Scope: Borg 101EDII with 0.7x Reducer @ F4.4 Mount: EQ6 with EQMOD Guiding: OAG with QHY5 Capture Software: CCD Commander, Maxim DL Processing Software: Deep Sky Stacker, PixInsight Calibration: No Bias, 25 x Darks, 25 x Flats Veil Nebula (12 x 15mins) Heart Nebula (8 x 15min) Horsehead (8 x 15mins) M42, forgot to take short subs for the core will have the do this later (6 x 15min subs) Here is even a little bonus Moon shot from my new DSLR, using a 300m lens

This is cracking Mike, was it from the Friday night? Did you use an EQ type mount or an Astrotrac?