Robotic recommendations?

[Demonperformer]

With the appalling skies I have had this year, I have been thinking about an alternative ...

Has anyone had any experiences with the online robotic telescopes for imaging?
If so, are there any sites that you would recommend?
Or recommend that I avoid?

Thanks.

[ollypenrice]

I'm at the other end of things as the host of five robotic setups but in your shoes I'd certainly look at Deep Sky West.

Olly

[AKB]

You might take a look at ITU:

https://imagetheuniverse.co.uk/

currently being set up at e-EyE in Spain:

http://entreencinasyestrellas.es/web/index.php/EN/

 

[Demonperformer]

Thanks. I'll check out those sites. 

[ampleamp]

Another to consider is ICA http://www.icastronomy.com/astrophotography.html a collaboration between a Ian King and Colin Cooper. Peter Goodhew and I share a site there. 

[Demonperformer]

Thanks.

All of the above seem to be a slightly different thing to that of which I was thinking (probably me not explaining myself very well).

I'm sure there used to be sites with which you could register, and then you paid for a specific amount of time on their scope to image any object you wanted using any of their available equipment (eg specific filters). All of the above seem to be either 'install your own setup here' or groups all working together on a combined effort.

Unless I am missing something?

[Petergoodhew]

I tried Slooh but soon abandoned it.  Poor quality low resolution cameras, and only short exposures (1-5 minutes I think).  I tried stacking multiple short exposures but the results were unusable. 

[ronin]

There was one as you describe, not sure if it still exists. I had bookemarked a few for a friend and these are them:

http://www.itelescope.net/

Astrocamp.es seems to have gone, might exist still under another name so a search could be worthwhile.

http://www.telescope.org/  Says down for maintenance but that these days also means gone, was titled as Bradford Robotic Telescope so again may be a "new" name for it, google search.

http://www.icastronomy.com/  That is the last of the others I had.

Slooh had a bit of Free access and they may have been the one you describe but a friend that used it gave up, as above not that good at the end.

Some time back a couple of people from here decided along thje same lines, abandoned their equipment and went for remote obs. Think 2 or 3 pooled together to spread the cost each time and cycled objects per person where in effect all 3 got the data.

Not sure how successful it was since once they went for the remote imaging they had little connection with SGL and I suppose faded away. So not sure if the change was successful or not. They may be all processing images happily or all jsut given up. There sometimes seems no middle ground.

You may get better feedback on CN, but Remote Imaging is not a forum topic either there nor here, so not hopeful.

[Demonperformer]

Thanks for all that, Ronin. I will chase down some of those leads (if they are still extant).

[AKB]

7 hours ago, ronin said:

Remote Imaging is not a forum topic either there nor here

...perhaps it could/should be?

23 minutes ago, Demonperformer said:

extant

Oooh, I love that word.  Kudos for using it!