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Telescope Ranchers

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Re: Telescope Ranchers

#61

Post by Retric »

dredmorbius wrote: post #59
Retric wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Image processing is a great way to get clean pictures but takes you further from direct observation. You could if extremely unlucky remove a supernova from your image not just meteors and cosmic rays.

Extremely unlikely. A supernova peaks over the course of days , and fades slowly over months to years . They also remain static relative to the background stars, as do all astronomical phenomena outside our Solar System, even over the span of a day.[1] Even a very-rapidly-peaking kilonova (neutron-neutron star collision) though they peak quite rapidly (short gamma-ray bursts, or SGBs, last about two seconds) have dur…

It’s not likely but it could definitely happen.

> A supernova peaks over the course of days

People do long exposures over hours and sometimes multiple days.

An algorithm assuming a static image could discard a relatively slow increase in brightness that shows up on say 10% of your samples.

So again not likely, but definitely something someone would prefer shows up despite being inconsistent.

Re: Telescope Ranchers

#62

Post by jjav »

db48x wrote: post #50
jjav wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe they could just like look at photos someone else has taken? If you are using someone else’s equipment, at a location you’ve never been too, it feels like you may as well just look at bubbles images of things. Yes.. this is an interesting philosophical question about the hobby. If you just rent some time one someone else's telescope on some location you don't visit, to take some photos.. how different is that…

I don’t think the telescope has to be sitting next to you. Actual astronomers take pictures remotely all the time. They don’t ride a shuttle up to the Hubble Telescope when it’s their turn to take pictures with it, they put coordinates into a website. Even most ground–based observatories are often operated remotely. Many of them are visited by astronomers too, but more and more that’s an optional step. Many astronome…

> They don’t ride a shuttle up to the Hubble Telescope

Right, but that's actual groundbreaking work, capturing image data that has never been captured before. The value there is in the work itself.

It's a different game for hobby astrophotography. Unless your budget is enormous, you're not going to every capture a photo that isn't already 10x better somewhere in https://app.astrobin.com/search

So what's the point then? I find it can be difficult to answer that question. There really isn't any point, other than the fun of the hobby. Why do I frame a photo of the Orion nebula that I took, which objectively is pretty much junk compared to everything in astrobin.com? Only because it has value to me because I took, but it doesn't really have any other value.

Re: Telescope Ranchers

#63

Post by fleeno »

I have a small scope down there, and it's great! I get a lot more use out of it being permanently setup in a dark sky site, rather than use it at my suburban house.

I'm currently doing observations of variable stars just for fun. Going to load up an observing plan for tonight shortly!

Re: Telescope Ranchers

#64

Post by rtkwe »

theresistor wrote: post #25
jimmy76615 wrote: post #15

Really great idea! But one still has to buy a telescope and send it to this guy, I think it would be cool if one could just rent everything at once. For non-serious people that have a lot of money that they would like to put to use looking at the stars. Or maybe a time-share like concept.

iTelescope does exactly what you’re outlining. There used to be a few others but I think they have mostly died out. I assume the economics don’t really work out.

It feels like a relatively small market niche, they're aiming for people interested enough in astronomy to pay for telescope time but not interested enough or unable to own their own scope in either their back yard or at a remote dark sky site.

Re: Telescope Ranchers

#65

Post by db48x »

jjav wrote: post #62
db48x wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the telescope has to be sitting next to you. Actual astronomers take pictures remotely all the time. They don’t ride a shuttle up to the Hubble Telescope when it’s their turn to take pictures with it, they put coordinates into a website. Even most ground–based observatories are often operated remotely. Many of them are visited by astronomers too, but more and more that’s an optional step. Many astronome…

> They don’t ride a shuttle up to the Hubble Telescope Right, but that's actual groundbreaking work, capturing image data that has never been captured before. The value there is in the work itself. It's a different game for hobby astrophotography. Unless your budget is enormous, you're not going to every capture a photo that isn't already 10x better somewhere in https://app.astrobin.com/search So what's the point the…

But surely the photo has the same value to you no matter how much effort it took. Sitting outside in the cold next to your telescope while you take the photo doesn’t make the picture more valuable than sitting inside at your computer taking the photo.

Re: Telescope Ranchers

#66

Post by jjav »

db48x wrote: post #65
jjav wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don’t ride a shuttle up to the Hubble Telescope Right, but that's actual groundbreaking work, capturing image data that has never been captured before. The value there is in the work itself. It's a different game for hobby astrophotography. Unless your budget is enormous, you're not going to every capture a photo that isn't already 10x better somewhere in https://app.astrobin.com/search So what's the point the…

But surely the photo has the same value to you no matter how much effort it took. Sitting outside in the cold next to your telescope while you take the photo doesn’t make the picture more valuable than sitting inside at your computer taking the photo.

> But surely the photo has the same value to you no matter how much effort it took.

Maybe? That's the philosophical question IMO.

If I have a website interface controlling some remote scope where I set coordinates and click to capture and go to sleep, and tomorrow download an image, this is starting to feel pretty close to just pointing the web browser to astrobin and downloading an image.

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