astrophotography

[rdking647]

ive always been interested in astronomy but living in the city make astrophotography hard with all the light pollution,plus i dont have the prober equipment.
I may have a found a good if not inexpensive solution
LightBuckets - Online Telescopes

what it is is a set of big telescopes in the new mexico desert with top notch ccd cameras attached. you set up an imaging program from home,setting uo the target,exposure length,filters and any other parameters you wish to set.
then you schedule your telescope run

at the predetermined time the scope takes your images and gets them into a downloadable form. you then download and process your images however you wish

I tried it for the first time over the last few days. here are the first results


first is the galaxy m51,the whirlpool galaxy in black and white


next is m81 and m82 also in black and white


last is m104,the sombrero galaxy in color


the telescopes arent cheap to use,especially for color but they are telescopes and camera that cost several hundred thousand dollars to buy so rental is really the only reasonable option.