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Old 01-10-2009, 07:48 PM
jase (Jason)
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Melbourne, Victoria
Posts: 3,916
Couldn't resist jumping on this thread...

I don't see it as cheating, but like others have mentioned to appreciate what goes into imaging, you can only get this experience setting up your own gear. Some obtain great pleasure through tinkering with their gear and troubleshooting issues. That's fine. However, if your goal is to be a productive imager, setting up your gear and playing around will wear thin pretty fast. For me, the real work is in processing the data, not acquiring it. Hence, I'll go to great lengths to improve the data acquisition efficiency. Automate, automate, automate. My definition of pleasure is not watching a guide star over a 6 hour imaging run or manually refocusing the scope every hour to make sure its still in the CFZ. I now use my own gear as a robotic set up located under dark rural skies in which is accessed 180km away (my very own rental scope - hardcore).

With rental scopes, I don't think people fully appreciate the level of service they're getting simply comparing the gear they get access to. Sure the gear is high quality, but its only part of the equation. Amongst other items, you're also paying for their location i.e. pristine dark skies. This alone puts a different weight to the equation. You're paying for quality data, but this can't come from the instrument alone. The environment its hosted in is critical. I have to say, imaging northern hemisphere objects is quite a highlight.

I liken it to the following analogy - You've got the money to purchase a 20" RC or CDK on PME with all the latest kit - good for you, but did they also mention you need to sink another $100k+ into buying a block of rural land on the side of a mountain to take full advantage of your recent scope purchase? Oooppps! Ah what the hell, just install it in the burbs and use it like a Ferrari with a rev limiter - on the bright side (literally), you'll get really good at processing gradients.

You need to ask yourself what you want to achieve out of imaging. Acquiring data is the tip of the iceberg.
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