© Reeth Informal Astronomy Group unless otherwise indicated
Reeth Informal
Astronomy Group
covering the Northern Yorkshire Dales
What Can You Do?
There are various things you can ask a telescope to do. The easiest is to take a “one click image”. This is where you click on a list of commonly imaged objects, and the telescope decides on all the relevant settings before taking a single image. The process takes about 5 to 10 minutes – which includes the time the telescope needs to slew to point at the object, make any adjustments needed to centre the object and focus as well as taking the image itself. About two minutes or so after talking the image the results are put in your folder on the system.
You can also type in the name of objects in the various star catalogues or even give the
co-ordinates of the area of sky you wish to image, as well as detailed instructions about the filters and exposure times to use. You can even write short sets of instructions in advance and say “run this”. But one thing to bear in mind is that only a few of the telescopes have colour CCDs so “one click images” on these scopes will be in black and white. Another is that the full scale images are often in FITS format, so you will need to download a FITS viewer to see them (several free viewers are available on-line).
How much does it cost?
It works on a points system. Different levels of subscription give different points allocations, which you can top up if you need to do so. The cheapest full access membership costs $19.95 AUS every 28 days and gives 20 points which can be used on any telescope open to members. The charge is only for the actual imaging time – 20 points would give you about 20 minutes with the shutter open each month on the smaller telescopes, and about 5 minutes on the really big ones.
Recommendation
My personal experience is that the system is well organised and could be of great interest to someone who wants to do high quality imaging or amateur level research. It can be used by beginners, but I would describe it as “idiot proof rather than idiot friendly”. Put another way, there are enough checks to stop you damaging the telescopes and sensors but not enough to prevent you wasting your time by trying to take an image when the observatory roof is closed, or the sky is partly obscured by cloud (I have done both). However it is an interesting experience and once my points balance has recovered I will probably have a go at a proper three colour image on one of the smaller telescopes.
Mike Evershed