SiriusDoggy wrote in post #19533013
Great shot Jeff. I wish I could host my own rig down in Chile!
friends of mine in the Skyscrapers, astronomy club (they always say it is a Society not a CLUB LOL) say using subscription scopes is cheating. Well my skies are Bortle 7.5 on a good dark night usually worse. I live 300 feet from a major mall with 24x7 lighting.
I belong to both Telescope Live (TL) and SLOOH. I prefer SLOOH to TL as SLOOH is more like using my own scope. TL runs anywhere from $35 to $120 an hour for scope time which I can't justify, but it has data you can download from previous observing runs for $1-$2 a hour of images. HOWEVER I think that is cheating as I am just getting data that is already captured, M83 was that type of download. When you schedule a telescope you tell them what you want and THEY control the scope after you tell them the exposure time, filters etc but you don't control the scope.
BUT I use it for is to create reference images of the best I can do with good data to compare to my SLOOH images and anything I may get with my own scopes here.
That brings me to SLOOH. Slooh has scopes in the Canary Islands (20,17,14,11) and Chile (17,14) AND soon Sliding Springs Australia (17). The thing I like about Slooh is that you actually control the scope you can slew it to a object from one of 20 different catalogs including Messier Caldwell and the complete SAO catalog OR you can tell it to slew to specific RA and DEC. You can image either in LRGB or Lum only (MONO) You can actually watch your capture live on their website. You can also watch what other people are imaging live so you can judge the sky conditions or see what the object actually looks like. They also have a solar scope Lunt 60mm that you can watch the sun live.
Slooh calls their imaging runs "missions". There are two levels of membership/use Apprentice and Astronomer.
. I had looked around to see what is out there that is reasonably priced and will give ok results. I decided on SLOOH due to the scopes, the ease of use, and the cost. I have friends who have automated their observatories and we are going to do that at the Seagrave Observatory and that basically is SLOOH, you get to use 9 different polar aligned scopes on EQ mounts with decent cameras. Focus is already done (my friends don't change theirs unless they change gear).
There are two levels of membership, the first is the Apprentice this lets you book one of the scopes for an imaging run (what they call missions), 1 at a time, but unlimited times a month and do a "piggyback" mission (they call their imaging/viewing runs missions) 5 at a time but unlimited times during the month and take snapshots of missions currently running. You get PNG files from you missions/snapshots. Piggyback Missions are where you request the data from someone elses mission. Not only do you get to down a PNG from you “mission” but you also get the raw data in fits images (L,R,G,B 4 files)
The cost is $200 a year - not bad to try it out or sit there and watch the sun and DSO's from the scopes live.
I started with that for about 24 hours and then upgraded to
The Astronomer Level, was $300 now $600 a year, this gives unlimited missions. You can schedule 5 missions and 5 piggyback missions at a time. As soon as a mission finishes you can schedule another one. You can get 15 or 20 missions in an evening easily, more data than you could possibly work. A difference between Apprentice and Astronomer is not just the number of missions but that at the Astronomer level you are given the RAW FITS files from the imaging runs. They have one OSC camera and the rest are mono and you can schedule either LRGB runs or Luminescence (B&W) runs.
It is really no different from you using your own GOTO scope, you decide on the scope you want to use and the time you are reserving the scope for and then you either plug in an object from 1 of 10 or 12 catalogs, Messier, Caldwell, Herschel, Bennet etc OR you can plug in RA and DEC and then determine the exposure you want. At the appointed time (and you can schedule up to a week in advance) the scope slews (that is how they pronounce SLOOH) to that object or location and starts imaging. You can watch the scopes at any time they are operating, it is EAA at its best and take a snapshot at any time to get a PNG. One limitation on imaging is that the missions are either 5 minutes or 10 minutes depending on the scope used. But since you can schedule unlimited missions you can stack all the files you get. for LRGB you get either 1L 1R1G1B or 3L 1R1G1B or 20 second Lums or 60 second Lums. For the PNG's there are processing recipes to affect the resulting image, for FITS you get the raw files. It seems as if each file is a 60 second capture, which with their dark skies does well.
They currently have observatories in the Canary Islands (5 scopes) and Chile (3 scopes) and are adding one in the United Arab Emirates (will be a 20" Planewave and 17" Planewave).
They have a 20" Planewave, two - 17" Planewaves, 11" Celstron Astrograph, two 14" Celestron C14's and a 90mm Takahashi.
Downsides? They bin their images so that they are not as good as they could be but with multiple missions you make up the quality. You still have to worry about satellites, planes, wind, humidity and clouds.
Conclusion: For someone in the situation I am, lousy skies, snow, cold, wind, clouds, lots of trees, difficulty traveling, I think SLOOH is a great site. Some people look down on it, saying you don't own the equipment (I forgot to check my Powerball number if I win I will buy SLOOH and it will be my equipment ROFL) and you schedule your time. But how is that different than saying I am going to fire up my remote observatory in the backyard at 9 pm and go to M42 and take an image? Yes there is joy in finding something yourself but how often do you do that? I know I use GOTO all the time.
I have been doing SLOOH for a couple years now, what can you get? well here are three of my shots (more at www.wx1usn.com ) I am happy with them.
Oh BTW you are required as part of your membership to keep the SLOOH copyright on each image, you can also add your own since the finished image is your image and interpretation. They cannot be used for awards in AF but they can certainly make you feel good about getting good shots and refining your skills. It got me to learn how to do FITS, I had never done them before
"sometimes having is not so pleasing as wanting, it is not logical but it is true" Commander Spock
"Free advice is seldom cheap" Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #59
I might not always be right, but I am never wrong! Once I thought I was wrong but I was mistaken!
