Telescope Live is a remote imaging service with telescopes located in Spain, Chile, and Australia. A friend made me aware of this service and they were offering 20 free imaging credits to try their service. This review is based on using my 20 free credits.

Note: the service updated their website and functionality on November 14, 2020 but their reservation system is still the same. Therefore, the screenshots are out of date but the process of making a reservation is unchanged even though the details of the steps you take will have changed.

Results

I scheduled a reservation for NGC 7000 because one of the telescopes that Telescope Live uses has a wide field of view. I thought I’d try the large NGC 7000 and see how it turns out. Here is the image:

The total exposure time was 12 minutes made up of the following exposures:

  • Luminance: 180 sec, binned 1×1
  • Red: 180 sec, binned 1×1
  • Green: 180 sec, binned 1×1
  • Blue: 180 sec, binned 1×1

I actually wanted more luminance exposure time, but this exposure time I set used up 18 of my 20 free credits. The result is still quite good.

Booking A Reservation

Making a reservation using Telescope Live is a multistep process. Telescope Live guides you through the process and it is actually very easy to use.

 The process begins with target selection:

You cannot provide your own coordinates, so your target must be in a catalog. I entered NGC 7000 and clicked Search Coordinates to fill in the RA and Dec boxes.

Based on the target, Telescope Live selects an appropriate telescope to use to image it.

In this case, Telescope Live selected SPA-3, a Takahashi 106-FSQ EDX4 having an aperture of 10cm.

Next you select how you plan to use your images:

This option basically sets up the next step in the process. The selections you have available to you are identical except that they are presented in a slightly different way.

Following this, you’re presented with the filters and exposures options:

Here you can choose the filters used, exposure time, and number of exposures.

On that same screen you’re given options for binning and focus settings:

Choosing the Advanced observation mode allows you to further customize these settings. For example, you choose the exposure time for each filter instead of using the same exposure time for all filters.

Following the observation mode is the scheduling option, either automated or custom:

According to Telescope Live, automated scheduling chooses the best time to schedule your reservation. Telescope Live doesn’t specify the criteria they use to schedule your reservation (for example, whether the altitude will be optimal) however they recommend the automated option for most targets unless you’re imaging a comet or asteroid. The Custom scheduling option allows you to select a date and time for your reservation.

The next option allows you to select the moon avoidance criteria:

You can select the maximum amount of moon illumination allowed plus the separation from your target. This is a nice feature to have when using the automated scheduling option.

On the right side of the screen, Telescope Live displays the credits required for your session:

If you have enough credits, you can confirm your reservation.

From there, your reservation goes into Pending status:

You can check on the status of your reservation at any time; the status includes the expected date your reservation will complete.

Reservation Completion

I booked my reservation April 20, 2020 and the reservation finally completed May 18, 2020 – almost one month later.

The reasons provided by Telescope Live were bad weather and the failure of the telescope that I used in my reservation. Telescope Live updated me on the status of my reservation with periodic emails that explained there was bad weather and explained how they moved my reservation from one telescope to another at the same site.

Downloading Images

I was able to easily download my images going into the ‘My Images’ area of my account, selecting all of the images, and then select download. The download process produces a ZIP file containing all of the calibrated FITS files.

Image Quality

The FITS files I downloaded were already calibrated so I was able to just open them and view them using a FITS viewer like JS9, AstroImageJ, PixInsight, or MaxIM DL. The image quality was very good with no artifacts like vertical lines, dust motes, etc.

I processed the images using PixInsight and produced the result you saw at the beginning of this article.

Cost

Each telescope has a different cost per minute of time used. Telescope Live charges for both imaging time and overhead and the cost is broken down for you on the right side of the screen as you make your reservation.

The telescope I used for this review cost 1.5 credits per minute and the cost of this image at the time I booked it was 18 credits. I rechecked the cost after this reservation completed and it had increased to 22 credits for the same exposure because Telescope Live added 4 credits for overhead time, as shown in the following screenshot:

Note that the following changed as of November 14, 2020 – the service only supports a subscription-based model now and you cannot make one-time purchases.

You can buy credits as a one-time purchase or you can subscribe to receive credits monthly. Subscriptions start at US$25 per month for 20 credits and you can go all the way up to about US$900 per month for many more credits per month.

The cost per minute of telescope time ranges between 0.8 credits and 3.3 credits per minute, depending on the telescope.

Overall Impression

I was impressed with Telescope Live’s reservation system since it made booking the reservation very easy. I was also glad they stayed in contact with me while I waited for my reservation to complete, plus their support was responsive too (I contacted their support one time to check on the status of my reservation).

I had to wait almost a month for my images, and the automated scheduler can take days to schedule a reservation, so if you’re in a hurry for your images, Telescope Live is likely not suitable for you.

Conclusion

In this article, I reviewed Telescope Live, a remote telescope service with telescopes in Spain, Australia, and Chile. I presented the final image, explained the reservation process in detail, discussed image quality and provided my overall impression.