This imaging option will be for future young users at schools and 'Astronomy Lite' casuals.. I know you guys are nothing like non-astronomers but have some fun...though with your critical eyes and experience you can tell us if its working.
Keep those outright beginners your test piloting for in mind though.
Doing my best to keep these guidelines for this kid of astro-imaging in mind.... and I need to say "Thank You very much" for allowing me to be a part of this experience, I have enjoyed it very much, and I hope my feedback turns out to be of value to you.
I am a complete astro-imaging newbie, the most I've done is try go hold my camera somewhere near the focuser of my dob and take afocal pics - and of 20-30 attempts at photographing the moon there's maybe 3 I'd actually show people. Enough said about my background (or distinct lack of it!)
First off the control centre seems very complete, rather than approach it as a "prepared" user I took the "they ain't gonna read all the paperwork stuff" route instead to best simulate what I felt many future users may do.
I do have to say that my belief has always been that well written software should be pretty intuitive, ie just enough options and controls to do the job, not so many as to become cumbersome or confusing, and I have to say that I think you guys have pretty much got this right.
(With some qualifications on this down below).
The software layout WAS easy to come to grips with and I had no problem actually taking images. I had already committed and the first image was underway when it occurred to me that I hadn't checked the weather info again, so with thoughts of imaging clouds in mind I was pleased to see a clear image resulted.
Feedback point: As much as the "1-2-3-4" step box works well maybe there should be an extra step or 2, one of those being "Remember to check the cloud/weather page before taking control / committing to a target".
Feedback point: This did raise another query I had at this point - there's 3 big visible circles that you can click on to "Release Observatory", "Abort Script" and "Control Observatory", however as I found out along the way for this kind of image selection it wasn't necessary to do "Control.." to take a pic, and in fact having done so I was using up my (free ) points while I waited for the target list to update, and then read and select a target. A paying user may find that irritating, and while again admitting I didn't read the Wiki or any other "instructions" in preparation for this I felt that perhaps there could have been clearer indication that target selection ONLY was required.
Putting that aside, the system really was very easy to use, and it really is a tribute to those who have designed and set it up. I have been to astro gatherings and seen imagers have enormous problems simply setting up their polar alignment and then sometimes having problems with making every single bit of hardware interface correctly along the way. This set up is SO SIMPLE and SO EASY to produce an image in under 15 minutes from go to "Whoa, it's in my inbox" it's amazing.
I found it interesting to watch the script process running each and every time, seeing the various steps taken which to be honest I would never have guessed that some of those steps existed ("flushing auto-guider" for instance).
Now, having said it was SO easy to actually capture an image, what I personally found was that of the 4 images I squeezed out of my 60 points (with 1 point to spare) although the image quality was, I thought, amazing (ie 600 seconds minutes exposure = 2.5 ° tracking, all stars pinpoint round, etc) I really was a bit disappointed with the actual CONTENT of some of my images. I'll explain why image by image.....
Last edited by Gargoyle_Steve; 14-05-2008 at 03:22 AM.
My first image was of IC4721, chosen I must admit because the thumbnail guide image in the selection list looked intriguing. Having no idea as to the actual Field of View of this scope/camera combination it was a bit of an experiment, however in hindsight I'm not quite sure why this object was included on the target list. If you look at the actual image result below the galaxy in question is a tiny smudge buried amongst a fairly even and plain starfield.
I understand that this is meant to be a beta test of the actual system, and not a means of gathering "pretty pictures" but if this list is meant to be indicative of what will be available as pre-selected targets for the " future young users at schools and 'Astronomy Lite' casuals" then I think either some objects need to be rethought, or as Fahim mentioned previously (and I think this is a VERY good idea) there should either be a truly indicative thumbnail image to show the relative size of the object, or at least some clearly labelled idea of the size of the image field of view AND add a column to the object table which shows the approximate size of each object.
My 2nd image was of NGC6559, an object I was unfamiliar with, again I found the thumbnail provided to be intriguing, and now being aware of the much wider field of view than first anticipated I thought this may well work out better. To be honest I think I prefer this image to any other I "captured".
The image / object size ration worked out well, and I'm glad to say that the "enhanced" 600 second exposures you gave us (up from 300) would have made a big difference to his object. As can be seen below some nebulosity is visible in the image, especially the brighter "band" seen underneath the bright double star that lays dead centre of the image. I've compared this to the APOD image found here, and as much as I would have like to have seen maybe my exposure maybe doubled again to bring out more detail, the APOD image looks almost "too nebulous" after looking at "mine"
The 3rd object I captured was one of my favourites, NGC4755 aka the Jewel Box.
I was aware it would look small in the field of view but I was keen to see how the colours that make it famous would come out.
Well .... the colours didn't work well at all. I had guesstimated that a 600 second exposure may be too much for this object, so I had a hunt around to see if I could find a way to change that setting.
Nope ..... I couldn't find a way to change the exposure time beforehand, and once you pick the target and press "submit" that seems to be that, it's all underway. The result here was somewhat overexposed and drained of colour.
Was there a way I could have changed this, or was it all totally "pre-programmed"?
Again I understand that this was a test of the overall system, how easy it is to comprehend and use, etc, and I am grateful of the chance to have captured ANY images at all, but I think that in the end what future users will want is a pleasing end result, not just the novelty of accessing such a system remotely, and so I mention the things that I believe other users will find lacking.
4th image - Omega Centauri is another of my favourites, so when scanning down the "common name" column of the target list when I saw it I clicked on submit straight away. If you look at the image result there is no sign of Omega Centauri there at all ... reason being that the actual "Designation" column lists NGC 5193 whereas Omega Cent is actually NGC 5139 ... so what I have instead if an image of a tiny 13th mag galaxy (a binary galaxy apparently) as seen here, and yes you can see the 2 of them if you look really closely).
So this one was down to a bad typo on the target list, I fully suspect it was always supposed to be OmegaCent and the NGC number was the mistake.
This wasn't the only mistake on the list, the Carina Nebula and listed NGC number didn't correspond either.
This is STILL a very good quality picture indeed!
However again I'll mention that those who will eventually pay to use this service will want images of the objects that they have selected.
Last comment, I promise!
(listening to the crowds cheering..... )
During the set up period Pete you messaged me at one stage saying you needed me to send my email address as you didn't have it. Well it turns out the address I sent was slightly different to the first one I had given you (one apparently as Steve, and one as Stephen as well), both valid, so I actually ended up receiving 2 emails with a registration link.
I DID feel a little bit "taken" by the Omega Cent mix up, so I did register the 2nd account as well and took a fifth image. I wasn't trying to con you or take system time away from paying users but I wanted to try the system one more time.
This time I selected an open cluster, Ptolemy's aka M7, as my last target. Being a broader object I figured the image size would work well.
And it did! There's a good visual impression of the relative brightness and density of this cluster as compared to the surrounding star field. Yet again the "click and shoot" system that you guys have set up worked flawlessly in acquiring, tracking, focusing and capturing the target. Again the image is as sharp as, and I can only wonder at the engineering precision that permits such tracking.
Please feel free to close down my second account (sdevine4631) as I won't access that again. I promise!
So - final wrap up - the system is brilliant, near fool proof, and so easy to use to capture an image that I'm still stunned thinking about it. There's a couple of minor bits of "spit and polish" in terms of the end user target selection / sizing issues that should be looked at perhaps, but all in all an easy and fast way to capture REAL astro images with no previous experience and no technical knowledge necessary.
Once again thanks very much for giving me the opportunity to try this system out. As a purely visual observer I can say that any occasional urges to want to image "something" could now happily be vented using your GRAS
system, and at a price where I could take many images and never coem close to spending what it would cost me to buy a solid mount, suitable telescope, quality camera, upgrade laptop to run it all, etc, etc.
Glad you are enjoying the service. Thanks for your feedback.
Quote:
Originally Posted by netwolf
Couple of suggestions, need some kind of realisitic preview of the object in the current FOV. The Thumbnails are misleading, better to have a popup when you mouse over the thumbnail that displays a realistic version from a library.
This is the best I can do given that I'm working with small thumbnail image. If I was to maintain the correct FOV in the thumbnail you wouldn't be able to see the target in the thumbnail. I do state on G13 that the thumbnails do not represent what is to be expected out of G13. Mouse over are a good idea but it kinda defeats of purpose of seeing how the image comes out when you take it. I'm looking at removing some of the small targets from the menu list.
Quote:
Originally Posted by netwolf
Perhaps a 2nd level could be access to raw data, this would help people in my situation a lot. Where I am learning to Image process, but dont have access to good data yet from my own instruments. So while i work on getting my own data, i can at least learn to process with some good data from your equipment. This will also help us learn a bit about the Target object.
The system was designed to give astro-photography to the masses for people with little or no experience. The design goals are simple, fun, one-click image, jpeg format.
We do offer the ability to upgrade the account to a full service trial for a small but reasonable fee, this gives you access to the full network and the raw data including carrying over your 60 G13 points. However this service was originally offered as a beta test system for IIS patrons and it not currently in full production. It was never my intention to drum up business and get people to convert across to the full system. The purpose of this offer was to help me iron our the bugs and get feedback.
Quote:
Originally Posted by netwolf
Is there a Reason why Omega Centauri is not on the list? Its so close to Centaurus A and yet not there to select.
Most likely cause was because I accidentally left it off the list or it was still below the observing limits I have set.
Quote:
Originally Posted by netwolf
Lastly the formating of the automated emails could use some work. The receipt is very confusing as the columns etc are all over the place.
Strange may I ask what email client you are using. It's a plain text mono spaced message with CR and the end of each line or sentence. Do you have a overriding non mono-spaced font for your plain text emails?
I'm the guy who put this system together and coded the software to make G13 what it is today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle_Steve
Feedback point: As much as the "1-2-3-4" step box works well maybe there should be an extra step or 2, one of those being "Remember to check the cloud/weather page before taking control / committing to a target".
Great idea. I will do that for sure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle_Steve
Feedback point: This did raise another query I had at this point - there's 3 big visible circles that you can click on to "Release Observatory", "Abort Script" and "Control Observatory", however as I found out along the way for this kind of image selection it wasn't necessary to do "Control.." to take a pic, and in fact having done so I was using up my (free ) points while I waited for the target list to update, and then read and select a target. A paying user may find that irritating, and while again admitting I didn't read the Wiki or any other "instructions" in preparation for this I felt that perhaps there could have been clearer indication that target selection ONLY was required.
Another good idea, I will remove those buttons expect for the abort button. The system when in use locks observatory at auto-releases it when you have finished. These buttons a really used for our other systems sometimes subscribers find it of benefit to lock the observatory which stops other people hi-jacking your session before you have a chance to fire off your request.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle_Steve
Putting that aside, the system really was very easy to use, and it really is a tribute to those who have designed and set it up. I have been to astro gatherings and seen imagers have enormous problems simply setting up their polar alignment and then sometimes having problems with making every single bit of hardware interface correctly along the way. This set up is SO SIMPLE and SO EASY to produce an image in under 15 minutes from go to "Whoa, it's in my inbox" it's amazing.
The Whoa factor is what I was aiming for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle_Steve
I found it interesting to watch the script process running each and every time, seeing the various steps taken which to be honest I would never have guessed that some of those steps existed ("flushing auto-guider" for instance).
Yes lots of things happen in order to keep the system on track. While many manufacturers of CCD camera say the flush the camera before exposure many do not, which leads to all sorts of problems. I do this to ensure the CCD is clean, specially when trying to autoguide on dim stars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle_Steve
My first image was of IC4721, chosen I must admit because the thumbnail guide image in the selection list looked intriguing.
If you look at my post to Fahim it explains why. However I will most like remove these types of targets from the menu selection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle_Steve
Nope ..... I couldn't find a way to change the exposure time beforehand, and once you pick the target and press "submit" that seems to be that, it's all underway. The result here was somewhat overexposed and drained of colour.
Was there a way I could have changed this, or was it all totally "pre-programmed"?
It is pre-programmed and will stay this way as things go froward I will tweak the exposure time on each of the targets. Some of these targets to image correctly need two sets of exposures with overlay the two in photoshop which is beyond the capability of this service. One to capture the background detail and the other to capture the main target without burning it out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle_Steve
4th image - Omega Centauri is another of my favourites, so when scanning down the "common name" column of the target list when I saw it I clicked on submit straight away. If you look at the image result there is no sign of Omega Centauri there at all ... reason being that the actual "Designation" column lists NGC 5193 whereas Omega Cent is actually NGC 5139 ... so what I have instead if an image of a tiny 13th mag galaxy (a binary galaxy apparently) as seen here, and yes you can see the 2 of them if you look really closely).
So this one was down to a bad typo on the target list, I fully suspect it was always supposed to be OmegaCent and the NGC number was the mistake.
This wasn't the only mistake on the list, the Carina Nebula and listed NGC number didn't correspond either.
Ahh great! We don't call it a beta for nothing! LOL I will fix this up today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gargoyle_Steve
and I can only wonder at the engineering precision that permits such tracking.
It's called a Paramount ME made by Software Bisque landed in Australia they are worth around $14,500 AUD, the hardware for the G13 setup costs over $35,000+ AUD to setup and configure correctly. Other system on our network exceed $80k+ mark.
This sounds great as a Freebee but what are the actual costs as a proper customer?
Let me preface this with I work for and I'm a co-owner of Global Rent-a-Scope.
Let me draw breath as this a complex question to answer..
The correct answer to this is a minute tiny small faction of the cost of buying one of these system little alone 11 systems outright.
It wasn't my intention to "drum up" business for gras here. However I will answer your question since you raised it.
You can trial the full system for $50 USD and carry your G13 points across. This would give you around on average 3 hours of use on the lowest cost system and around 1.6 hours on the most expensive system. However the trial only applies once per customer account. So from $16 to $31 per hour.
GRAS offers two types of plans which optimise's cost towards CCD imaging telescopes and the science research telescopes depending on what work you want to do.
Astrophotography Plans come in a monthly subscription or once off purchase of points.
To give you a idea $99 USD per month subscription will get you around 1.8h to 1h of telescope time depending on the system. $55 to $99 per hour.
A $249 USD monthly plan will give you around 7 to 4 hours between on the system. $35 to $62 per hour.
Bulk once off purchase of $500 USD will give you around 5 to 10 hour depending on the system so from $50 to $100 per hour
You can get more hours imaging during a lunar period you can get a extra 24% discount which extends your imaging time future.
If you want to do something crazy like plonk down $5,000 USD it would get you around 156 to 86 hours depending on the system which works out to be $36 to $58 per hour not factoring in any moon discount and you get access to 11 telescope system at 3 different dark sky locations around the world.
If you think about it for a single semi-pro imaging rig around $70k to $80k on average which is about 6% of hardware costs of one system not factoring in the ongoing maintenance, internet costs and hosting costs at a good dark clear weather site.
However the downside of remote imaging is it can't satisfy the burning desire of playing with the hardware in the flesh and spending endless hours setting things up and getting really cold and tired.
Now... If you really think about it...
Lets say you spend $5000 to $12000 on a entry level imaging rig because your interested in astrophotography.
Based on my typical experience (because I've been their done it myself) give the limited opportunity in not having a dedicated setup means you need to have a dark site, have good weather, setup the telescope polar align it, setup the ccd and start taking exposures (assuming you have the experience to pull this offer in hour or so) and you might be only able to do this every once and a while due to your life commitments this also assumes you don't get frustrated with it and don't give up on astrophotography, lets face it can be very technically challenge.
You might find in the course of 3 years you might only take 10 maybe 25 hours of exposures and if your really good maybe 50 to 100 hours of total exposure time. So the true cost for buying your own system would range from $240 to $120 per hour of exposure time if you stick with it. To get the costs to $30 per hour you need to 166 hours on a $5,000 setup and 400 hours on a $12,000 setup.
If you go with a semi-pro system and spend say $60,000 on it you would need to imaging 2000 hours of total time to get the hourly cost down to $30 per hour.
In Melbourne I found I was only able to produce around 200 imaging hours per year due to weather with my semi-pro setup so the the yearly cost for me was around $300 USD per hour. This is why my system is now part of GRAS and located at a remotely hosted dark site.
Food for thought.....
Once you put it into perspective its typically much more cheaper to rent than its to own your own entry level imaging rig outright. However pure cost is not always the deciding factor otherwise everyone would rent unless your a Gender, Croman, Glesson or a Crawford pumping out images like their is no tomorrow.
Best Regards
Brad Moore
Last edited by Brad Moore; 14-05-2008 at 09:01 PM.
Reason: typos
"Feedback point: As much as the "1-2-3-4" step box works well maybe there should be an extra step or 2, one of those being "Remember to check the cloud/weather page before taking control / committing to a target".
Great idea. I will do that for sure.
........
Best Regards,
Brad Moore
As good as his word - and fast - the "Steps 1-2-3-4" guide box now has 5 steps - the new step 2 is "Check Weather" with a link to a reminder page.
Fantastic work Brad!
Last edited by Gargoyle_Steve; 14-05-2008 at 11:13 PM.
) points while I waited for the target list to update, and then read and select a target. A paying user may find that irritating, and while again admitting I didn't read the Wiki or any other "instructions" in preparation for this I felt that perhaps there could have been clearer indication that target selection ONLY was required.
)
I wasn't trying to con you or take system time away from paying users but I wanted to try the system one more time. 
I will fix this up today.
