Remote imaging experiances

[admin]

14 hours ago, Scott said:

No-one has ever said you can't post images. I'm unsure why you would wish to insinuate it's the case. All anyone has ever said is that you avoid promoting your business as per coc. Welcome back after such a long break anyway. I wonder why you chose this thread to do so

@PatrickGilliland  Scott is right. You chose to stop posting when we asked you to stop advertising your business at SGL. There was no confusion. 

[ollypenrice]

2 hours ago, kirkster501 said:

... and pay for the electricity bills! 

But I fleece them on the rent, don't worry!

lly

[ollypenrice]

28 minutes ago, Demonperformer said:

The trouble with the "it's not yours" approach is where do you draw the line. If I take a holiday at Olly's and use his equipment which I have neither bought nor set up does this make the result any less mine? I can imagine some of the choice comments I would get if I unPA'd & uncollimated his equipment just so I could say it was all my own work! 

You might think you can imagine them but, trust me, I can be very inventive with language!!!! 

Hehheh, now I need to go and take my pills. The thought of being de-PA'd and de-collimated has been most upsetting to one of my years...

Olly

[MrsGnomus]

23 minutes ago, admin said:

Scott is right. You chose to stop posting when we asked you to stop advertising your business at SGL. There was no confusion. 

There are a number of other users of SGL who are ‘permitted’ to advertise in their threads - I can think of at least 2 who post regularly and advertise in every post that they make.  I have no problem with those users doing this and have actually used the services advertised but I fail to see why one rule should apply to Paddy and another to them. 

[wxsatuser]

28 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

But I fleece them on the rent, don't worry!

lly

I have a vision of Rigsby.

[Demonperformer]

38 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

You might think you can imagine them but, trust me, I can be very inventive with language!!!! 

I did say "some"

[admin]

41 minutes ago, MrsGnomus said:

There are a number of other users of SGL who are ‘permitted’ to advertise in their threads - I can think of at least 2 who post regularly and advertise in every post that they make.  I have no problem with those users doing this and have actually used the services advertised but I fail to see why one rule should apply to Paddy and another to them. 

Over the years we have made a handful of exceptions for people who have contributed significantly to the SGL community. But they are exceptions. We do try to keep advertising to a minimum. 

Apologies to Peter Shah for hijacking his thread. 

[spillage]

Off the top of my head the thought of a totally remote obs site in  perfect conditions initially seems to be the best thing in the world, but after thinking about it for longer seems not be my cup of tea.

I love tinkering both with mechanics and computers (although not great at either) so I feel I would only get 50% satisfaction from the hobby. I also enjoy the possibility of being able to actually go outside and look up at the skies I am imaging and seeing where my finished image has been born, whether this is at home in the UK or (when the opportunity arises) in another country under some darker clearer skies.

If the UK skies really got me down that much I think I would just work hard towards getting a property or moving abroad.

[MrsGnomus]

14 minutes ago, admin said:

Over the years we have made a handful of exceptions for people who have contributed significantly to the SGL community. But they are exceptions. We do try to keep advertising to a minimum. 

Apologies to Peter Shah for hijacking his thread. 

Ah! I get it now, it’s Orwell’s maxim....

’All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’.

As I look from one poster to another and back again I find it impossible to say which is which.

[ollypenrice]

I'm probably unlikely to get to the southern hemisphere again and yet I'd like to get involved with the southern sky. One way would be through remotely captured data. I know I can download pictures and maps of southern targets but I never really feel I know an object till I've processed a good solid dataset on it. This is just how I feel, it's not rational. We can't go to the Orion Nebula but we can somehow get our hands on it while constructing an image from raw data.

One nice and non-commercial idea might be a data exchange deal with southern hemisphere imagers. Indeed it might be a bonus for the forum to encourage social contact across the equator. Just swap a dataset from the north with one from the south and vice versa. Maybe worth a new thread and a heads up for our southern hemisphere friends?

Olly

[kirkster501]

Would love to do visual on Southern Stuff as well.  Had the bins on The Magellanic clouds and the Globular clusters and they are spectacular.  Must be a delight to image.  To be fair we have some great stuff to image as well, if the infernal clouds and rain would just clear off ?

[Scott]

47 minutes ago, MrsGnomus said:

Ah! I get it now, it’s Orwell’s maxim....

’All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’.

As I look from one poster to another and back again I find it impossible to say which is which.

look at the animals that contribute greatly for many yrs such as boxer then look at the ones who want to be treated the same or worse, be privelaged without putting in the effort such as the pigs and you'll soon see the difference. 

 

[sloz1664]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

One nice and non-commercial idea might be a data exchange deal with southern hemisphere imagers. Indeed it might be a bonus for the forum to encourage social contact across the equator. Just swap a dataset from the north with one from the south and vice versa. Maybe worth a new thread and a heads up for our southern hemisphere friends?

Excellent idea Olly. I'm all for it

Steve

[PatrickGilliland]

3 hours ago, admin said:

You chose to stop posting when we asked you to stop advertising your business at SGL. There was no confusion. 

Guys - I think the point was I was confused, the fact you were not is clear.  I fully accept that the source post may have been construed as advertising but I was only inviting SGL user to come and find me to talk about processing, to be honest, I did not even stop to think about telling them where to find me was an issue.  A gentle word in my ear and I would have happily amended the post(the rest was dealt with by email and no need to be in the public forum).  My confusion lies with the fact I can post the image but I can't say where I took it as if I do I may be construed as advertising.  My customers can (many reference DSW here already for example) given the experience 'I' chose not to post so as not to create any issues (and yes I did take exception to my treatment previously but I am happy to move on from that).  As per the original moderator post if I can reference the image source all is well and I can post if not I will continue to refrain.  Clarification on that point would be appreciated as I am still not sure, hence the use of the word confused.

Anyway, I suggest we get back onto Peter's original topic  It was quite interesting I thought and the side issues are detracting from the threads topic.

 

[coatesg]

I can see exactly where Pete is coming from - I enjoy the setup and work to get the equipment working as needs, but when it is largely setup (which is kinda similar to mine except I have to go out and shove the dome round every so often!!  ), it would be nice to get a bit more use out of it. I looked into E-Eye prices a while ago, and while they are pretty good, it's not something I could stretch to at the moment without going into a small partnership on both the equipment/design and operations side like I know others have (I haven't really investigated in any vaguely serious way though!). 

I do know though, that, as much that it's all setup and operating well down the garden, I would need to make changes to make it more reliable when fully remotely operated.

Remote imaging with kit I have helped design/setup appeals just as much as imaging in my garden - but "automated imaging" (eg via iTelescope) just doesn't appeal to me personally - typing in coords and exposures into a webpage isn't really how I want to do this side of the hobby - I'd want to be a bit more hands on. Having said all that, I am still interested in hearing people's experiences - it's an interesting technical challenge, and I'd like to know how well it really does work!

 

[ollypenrice]

22 minutes ago, coatesg said:

I can see exactly where Pete is coming from - I enjoy the setup and work to get the equipment working as needs, but when it is largely setup (which is kinda similar to mine except I have to go out and shove the dome round every so often!!  ), it would be nice to get a bit more use out of it. I looked into E-Eye prices a while ago, and while they are pretty good, it's not something I could stretch to at the moment without going into a small partnership on both the equipment/design and operations side like I know others have (I haven't really investigated in any vaguely serious way though!). 

I do know though, that, as much that it's all setup and operating well down the garden, I would need to make changes to make it more reliable when fully remotely operated.

Remote imaging with kit I have helped design/setup appeals just as much as imaging in my garden - but "automated imaging" (eg via iTelescope) just doesn't appeal to me personally - typing in coords and exposures into a webpage isn't really how I want to do this side of the hobby - I'd want to be a bit more hands on. Having said all that, I am still interested in hearing people's experiences - it's an interesting technical challenge, and I'd like to know how well it really does work!

 

I think partnerships are the obvious way to attack a number of issues in AP, most obviously the cost and then the need for hours of data to do something special.

Olly

[Tim]

Astrobin IOTD?  Pfffft, I didn't even get a letter from the queen or anything when I got mine, so I chucked it off the Second Street bridge into the Ohio river.*

 

 

 

*Not literally

[tomato]

4 hours ago, kirkster501 said:

To be fair we have some great stuff to image as well, if the infernal clouds and rain would just clear off ?

Sorry, Kirster501 and other UK based imagers, the Esprit 150 was delivered earlier this week, and there hasn’t been a hint of clear sky since. FLO put some suitably large “may contain clouds” stickers on the box

[Demonperformer]

That's all right, Tomato. My new scope is on order, but not due until the end of the month. I'm happy to get all the cloudy skies out of the way before then. Now, where did I put those anti-psychotics? 

[ollypenrice]

46 minutes ago, Tim said:

Astrobin IOTD?  Pfffft, I didn't even get a letter from the queen or anything when I got mine, so I chucked it off the Second Street bridge into the Ohio river.*

 

 

 

*Not literally

I'm surprised by this, Tim. Her majesty is very quick and most gracious with the telegrams, I find, though the OBE does, I warrant, seem to be dragging its feet...

lly

PS I'm glad your footnote clarified the fate of the telescope. I was about to set out in a dredger.

 

[Allinthehead]

Since there are so many who like to use downloaded data, maybe it would be a good idea to have a processing only challange. Maybe someone who runs a setup that provides such a service could offer some high quality pro data for the challange? Cough cough

[Allinthehead]

11 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Just to be clear, I don't post anything captured by the remote scopes I host.

Oh ya i hope you don't think that's what i meant. I was just saying one can have business interests and still post images.

[peter shah]

There has been some very interesting points made here but I haven't really got the answers I was looking for... Everyone has there own idea of what is right and what is wrong that is very clear .... and I have my own....

 Can I bring this back on to topic please 

I already have a high end setup here in my back garden, I even have some of the darkest skies in the UK. (Boo hiss.... I hear you all say.. )  When the skies are clear, which isn't as often as I would like, I can get some really good quality data sets......I just need more clear skies so I see buying telescope time as a good option for me  ..... Does anyone have any experiences they can share on how user friendly these remote facilities are? has anyone had any issues using  them? How good is the data? how satisfied were you and do you think it was good value?

[tomato]

Hello Peter, I take your point, your thread has stirred up some deep philosophical discussion, but hasn’t provided you with many answers to your original questions.

I have no experience of remote imaging, I still plan to persevere with UK imaging, moving to a retirement location not too far from you.

However, I came across this, which seemed quite a balanced appraisal.

https://astronomytechnologytoday.com/2017/06/13/9827/

 

[Star101]

6 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I'm probably unlikely to get to the southern hemisphere again and yet I'd like to get involved with the southern sky. One way would be through remotely captured data. I know I can download pictures and maps of southern targets but I never really feel I know an object till I've processed a good solid dataset on it. This is just how I feel, it's not rational. We can't go to the Orion Nebula but we can somehow get our hands on it while constructing an image from raw data.

One nice and non-commercial idea might be a data exchange deal with southern hemisphere imagers. Indeed it might be a bonus for the forum to encourage social contact across the equator. Just swap a dataset from the north with one from the south and vice versa. Maybe worth a new thread and a heads up for our southern hemisphere friends?

Olly

I took out a subscription to iTelescope some time ago but never really used it as I think it is very expensive. Recently, as my account has built up through lack of use, ( I pay monthly). I was looking at imaging the southern skies during our summer months. Definitely food for thought.