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Remote hosting for your telescope
- tbagman 1y agoI can also recommend starfront observatories (https://starfront.space https://starfront.space) for folks looking to do remote hosting. It's in a remote location in Texas with solid skies and great staff, and has a pretty unique model of high density hosting to drive down cost, seeing a ton of deep sky astrophotographers come. From time to time there are fun collaborative projects too, like https://app.astrobin.com/u/bagman?i=ey9s59#gallery https://app.astrobin.com/u/bagman?i=ey9s59#gallery.
- s0rce 1y agoIs this for hobbyists or industrial use?
- tbagman 1y agoIt's primarily for hobbyists. From the community discord, I know there are also serious rigs out there as well, on which some members are doing some astronomical science...
- therein 1y agoTelescope datacenter, what a cool concept.
- exe34 1y agoFarm might be a better word. Like render farm.
- dmead 1y agoObligatory comment that bray fals has been caught making up data ie, using Photoshop to paint detail in fals-1, the supposed new discovery that was actually already in some survey data. Fun fact, Bray was the second jtw trident user in North America. I think I was the first. Also, bit weird you can't come set up your own telescope.
- tbagman 1y agoEvidence?
- throwaway31131 1y agoI don't really know too much about this but apparently he calls himself an astrophotographer and not an astronomer, so maybe the use of photoshop isn't all that surprising. https://www.bbcearth.com/news/extreme-night-sky-with-bray-falls https://www.bbcearth.com/news/extreme-night-sky-with-bray-fa...
- dmead 1y agohis images on consumer hardware have smaller details than the hubble or meter wide telescopes on the ground. he says it's his processing skill, but it's probably really because he (at some stage of the process) puts his images through topaz denoise which invents detail.
- fudged71 1y agoWhat are other examples of managed remote hosting of things that aren’t compute? I had considered this model for a 3D print farm years ago.
- malfist 1y agoTelescopes are pretty common for this, but lab equipment is too. Universal particle accelerators and stuff
- s0rce 1y agoMedical device manufacturing, kind of.
- IgorPartola 1y agoSolar panel collectives.
- digdugdirk 1y agoWait... Collective? Not a utility? Are we talking about a neighborhood chipping in on a few panels, or something more interesting?
- amoshebb 1y agoIn nova scotia there are grants to build “community solar gardens”. A 3-6MW solar farm is built somewhere cheap and convenient and then anybody in the community can pay for so many panels and then they get that amount knocked off the light bill as if they had rooftop solar. Idea is it lets people buy solar unrelated to if they rent/own or have a good roof pitch or whatever.
- tinix 1y agoamateur radio antenna farms also
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- incognito124 1y agoAnother telescope hosting service I heard about, based in Spain: https://www.pixelskiesastro.com/ https://www.pixelskiesastro.com/
- yapyap 1y ago600/month good for whomever that’s a cheap price lol, but I think if you’re a regular earning-ish person you would rather host the telescope in your own backyard
- markus_zhang 1y agoYeah looks very expensive unless I can pay say a day.
- jalk 1y agoThis service is for hosting your own remote controlled telescope, not short term rental of a shared telescope (think colo. vs cloud provider)
- teamonkey 1y agoYou can rent out viewing time on your remote telescope using services such as https://www.itelescope.net/ https://www.itelescope.net/ (you can search for telescopes hosted at SRO). I wouldn’t expect it to be a massively profitable side hustle though.
- dnemmers 1y agoHow much remote hands time does that include per month? I’m guessing these still need ‘manual’ tweaking at times.
- malfist 1y agoThat's a pretty reasonable price. Most are around $800
- manquer 1y agoThe backyard option is only feasible if you live somewhere without light pollution and clear skies, which is not most people. $600/month is a reasonable deal if comparing it to driving couple of times a month to a dark sky location near you. While it is fun and rewarding to be camping and hiking like that, the effort gets in the way of serious amateur astronomy. Amateur astronomy is one of the few hobby science fields left where real contributions can be made and published without being a professional astronomer.
- michaeldoron 1y agoThis might be the smallest of marketing nitpickings, but the technical support is not free, it's complimentary for $600/month.
- RainyDayTmrw 1y agoSince it's remote and networked to begin with, is there some way to get a time-share on one of these telescopes? I don't think I'm the target audience, but I imagine that one exists.
- jmathai 1y agoLooks like it. From the For Sale page: "Some clients are looking for telescope sharing arrangements."
- 7373737373 1y agoYes, https://www.itelescope.net/ https://www.itelescope.net/
- ge96 1y agoThere's some guy who built a ranch of remote operated telescopes for rent on YT pretty cool business
- jalk 1y agoI've been looking to take my kids to an observatory, but the logistics makes it tricky (travel + night time), so I have been searching for online services where you can get a guided tour, with "hands-on" telescope control, but have so far come up short. It needs to be guided, since I know very little about astronomy and telescopes.
- whartung 1y agoTry to see if there’s a local astronomy club. They tend to routinely have field nights where folks bring their equipment out, point it at something interesting and let the public engage in the activity.
- rickydroll 1y agohttps://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-clubs-organizations/ https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-clubs-organizations/ listing of clubs [Edit: map locations are "aspirational". You will need additional research]
- jalk 1y agoThanks for the tip, but night + travel outside of the city, is why I'm looking for something online
- teddy-smith 1y agoI had no idea this whole world exists and it makes me happy.
- _xerces_ 1y agoI don't understand this service. I feel it takes away from the experience. One of the few hobbies that gets you outside and under the stars and learning to navigate the sky and its motions was already being reduced to pressing a few buttons on a laptop connected to the scope. Now, you don't even leave your house?
- ranger207 1y agoI think it's more for astrophotography enthusiasts where the hobby is more about getting good photography setups than looking at stars yourself