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Actually in the DLSR category there cannot be any remote imaged entries, as I am not aware of any "rent a scope" businesses offering DSLR scopes for use online.
I have taken up the GRAS trial membership offer and have taken a few images on some of its scopes. To go really deep would take a considerable amount of money, eg I saw a lovely narrowband shot of Eta carina on the GRAS forums, that took 12 hours of imaging time. That would cost over $500 or thereabouts of scope time.
Perhaps next year could I suggest a separate category of remote imaged images. You see, it is not that difficult to use the GRAS system. The owners have gone to a lot of trouble to make it as user friendly as possible. Their scopes are all autofocus and use platesolve to point exactly at whatever the user specifies. They maintain an extensive library of darks, flats and bias frames for the users to use in processing their images (and work well, ive used them).
once youve chosen what scope to use, you just put in the co ords (or object name), put in the exposure, filters and binning in a simple menu display, then hit the aquire image button and let it go. It can log you off after the run is finished and images will soon be in their ftp site ready for download. They also have skype, allowing one to talk to someone if youre having probs.
in theory, a person who has never looked through, or touched a telescope ever, can watch the video tutorials and start taking images with GRAS in maybe 1/2 hour or so.
To be fair the real skill of the user happens after downloading the images. The processing. That is soley up to the user.
So its certainly an interesting issue. The rules this year are already set, but it might be worth considering wether to have remote imagery in a separate category. When I say remote, I mean using a telescope that you yourself never set up (some astronomers have their own scopes in a home observatory they can operate from the house, but they actually set it all up and so I dont include those)
Anyway I cannot enter anything, remote imaged or otherwise as Im not attending SPSP nor a member of ASNSW, but thought Id air my thoughts, thanks for reading
Scott
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