Remote imaging versus hands-on astrophotography: the debate continues

I like to fish…spend the time at the lake or pond, cast my line and sit for some time hopeing to have a bite. I dont want to buy a couple of fillets at the fish market. It may taste the same but it’s not. Same with Astrophotography, I may not be very good and I have more problems then successes but they are… my successes.

Skynet Observatory · Jan 23, 2026, 04:01 PM

Hi,

Fully “hands-off” remote observatories, where you just submit a plan and wake up to a folder full of data, are probably not that exciting for most people in this hobby. Let’s be honest… we’re here because we enjoy the process and the challenges, including the ones that try to break us at 3 a.m.

That said, the remote world has evolved quite a bit. Today you can host your own equipment at a remote site or lease a dedicated rig for a year or more. In both cases, you have full control. You program the sequences, deal with the quirks, troubleshoot when something goes sideways, and pull the data yourself. Functionally, it’s no different than if the rig were sitting in your backyard… just with much better skies and fewer neighbors’ porch lights.

I run gear at home, I have several portable rigs for dark-site escapes, and I also operate two fully controlled remote observatory setups. I can tell you from experience: from an effort and problem-solving perspective, remote imaging is not “easy mode.” The problems are just different. Instead of freezing fingers, you get flaky network links, stuck domes, and that special joy of rebooting things you can’t physically touch.

In the end, they’re just different flavors of the same obsession. Backyard, portable, remote… all are valid, all are challenging, and all can produce stunning work when done well.

Clear skies… and may your dome always open on the first command.

Naw, I like the years of flogging I’ve had to get where I am. If it goes to chit, I have to fix it. If my neighbors are arseholes (and many are), I get to play with LP filtering (and I do). I like doing my near remote operation, 75 feet distant.

I do many of the things you mention when needed. Even remove and reinstall a misbehaving program if it just won’t behave. I don’t “fix” it, I annihilate it and start from files I installed them from in the first place, remotely. (That is if I just don’t say F-it and go to bed. Tomorrows another day and it will have a night to play in.) My approach got me called using a hammer to fix a problem by a couple of a-holes on Cloudy Nights. Well, it sure as hell fixed the BS. I’m not one to pick code with the chickens. And one of those two actually put out an “Update” to ASTAP which broke it for months. So who is the dumber hammer? Han Keijn had to personally fix “Bob’s” frittering. I got Han’s fix and keep it in a safe, because it works for me.

When I began, life was tough to become an imager. I dream of one day not sitting out shivering or being eaten by mosquitoes waiting for my picturds to slowly come in. I liken buying time on remote equipment to using a DVR to catch a movie. Anyone can do it. And to just order a session of a particular DSO is like using a drive-up window for food. It works, but you don’t really learn anything. The window does not make you a cook nor a chief.

Clear skies back at you. My dome always opens because I have to go take the bag off my equipment. 😉 The diversity is a lot like everybody’s equipment, no two the same.

Drew Evans · Jan 23, 2026, 07:56 PM

Why not BOTH! 😀

📷 observatory setup.jpg

Well now, Drew, you are just showing off. 🤣👍️

SonnyE · Jan 23, 2026, 08:32 PM

Drew Evans · Jan 23, 2026, 07:56 PM

Why not BOTH! 😀

📷 observatory setup.jpg

Well now, Drew, you are just showing off. 🤣👍️

If only the clear skies came with it!

I admire them the way I’d admire photos coming from an observatory, but they don’t create an emotional bond for me. That’s why I usually tend to skip over those kinds of images on AstroBin.

For me, it’s really a matter of having an emotional connection with the “struggle” and the overall context behind the images I look at. Fully remote setups just aren’t my thing, and I generally don’t find images captured from some desert on the other side of the world all that engaging. Nothing personal, of course—just my own humble and personal take on the matter.

So I have just 2 months ago set up my first (and only) remote imaging set up - at a new obs on a nature reserve in South Africa (in the same region where SALT is).

I’d disagree with the OP statement that it’s all super-expensive scopes or super-expensive mounts. My setup is a humble little Televue 76 with a 0.79x reducer flattener. It sits on an old HEQ5 Pro belt modded mount. Unguided. And its doing absolutely fantastically - I cannot believe the images that come through

I still control it the same way that I would my setup in my garden.

The only difference is that I do not have to physically set it up, or break it down, nor do I have to worry about rain etc as it is in an observatory shed. That’s not actually that different from the back garden observatories that some lucky folks have (I don’t).

I started off with AP from my Bortle 9 back garden, and I still do it - when the weather allows!

It was great to start off that way - you actually learn stuff (and AP is definitely a steep learning curve).

Why did I go the remote route then?

Simple. The southern skies! What other way am I going to get to discover and image them? And tbh it’s another great learning curve - getting to know the skies, and the objects and features. Its not at all a case of just outsourcing, or just dipping into a buffet that’s laid out for you.

And by doing that, I also have to say I really enjoy it more. Setting up and breaking down every time is not a chore I miss. You sleep more soundly not having to worry about freak weather, or the forecast having got something wrong.

As the friction decreases, your enjoyment increases. And I’m finding that actually I have a chance to enjoy visual astronomy from home more now - so it’s not that the connection to the skies diminishes.

So I would do it again in a heartbeat. And if I got the chance to put up a scope at a Northern hemisphere site for a sensible cost, I’d do it.

Having said that, do I appreciate the images from backyards less? No not at all. Hats off to those who still have the strength and tenacity to do that. Do I think backyard images get overlooked in things like IOTD, and swamped by an arms race of monster remote setups, yes - but tbh the whole IOTD thing is ridiculous anyway. I place more value on an image someone has captured from tough backyard conditions than a 100m monster scope sitting on the top of a mountain.

I think it boils down to why you remote image. If it’s to be part of an arm’s race for IOTD images, meh you’re missing the point. If it’s to explore new skies from places where the weather is more reliable, then great. One of the v nice things about all the technological progress in AP is that it is now possible to setup humble equipment and still have a blast.

Anyway that’s my tuppence worth.

Jose Ignacio Alvarez-Hamelin · Jan 23, 2026 at 11:55 PM

Well, I just bought a very interesting toy: the Dwarf 3, which does practically everything for you. In return, it's one of the cheapest ways to get into astrophotography. What I love: taking advantage of dark, clear nights (I spent 12 of my 15 holiday nights doing astrophotography), plus the low cost. To get similar equipment, you'd spend nearly double or more. The kind of activity I love: staying under a star-filled sky, spending time finding objects. For me, the best combo is a full optical/camera setup, but it's costly. I also have an old Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain of 1020 mm and some 10×50 binoculars. I'm trying to learn the stars and constellations during sessions with my Dwarf—and that's what I enjoy: living under dark, star-filled nights. If you're comfortable doing it from a distance, that's your game, but the most important thing is enjoying our own adventures. Clear (and not-too-cold) nights!"

The Dwarf 3 is brilliant. It actually played a big role in me going down the remote imaging path. Taking it with me to holidays in S & W Europe (Bortle 2/3/4) and seeing what a little scope like that could do in dark skies made me realise that sending a little refractor to the right type of obs setup would be worth looking at.

At one stage I was even thinking of just setting up a Dwarf 3 remotely but sadly the Dwarflab software doesn’t really work well with that (there is a workaround but its not ideal).

Anyway, enjoy your Dwarf 3, it’s great. I also use it for landscape timelapses for things like sunsets!

Nick Smith · Jan 24, 2026, 12:24 AM

Vin · Jan 24, 2026, 12:17 AM

Jose Ignacio Alvarez-Hamelin · Jan 23, 2026 at 11:55 PM

Well, I just bought a very interesting toy: the Dwarf 3, which does practically everything for you. In return, it's one of the cheapest ways to get into astrophotography. What I love: taking advantage of dark, clear nights (I spent 12 of my 15 holiday nights doing astrophotography), plus the low cost. To get similar equipment, you'd spend nearly double or more. The kind of activity I love: staying under a star-filled sky, spending time finding objects. For me, the best combo is a full optical/camera setup, but it's costly. I also have an old Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain of 1020 mm and some 10×50 binoculars. I'm trying to learn the stars and constellations during sessions with my Dwarf—and that's what I enjoy: living under dark, star-filled nights. If you're comfortable doing it from a distance, that's your game, but the most important thing is enjoying our own adventures. Clear (and not-too-cold) nights!"

The Dwarf 3 is brilliant. It actually played a big role in me going down the remote imaging path. Taking it with me to holidays in S & W Europe (Bortle 2/3/4) and seeing what a little scope like that could do in dark skies made me realise that sending a little refractor to the right type of obs setup would be worth looking at.

At one stage I was even thinking of just setting up a Dwarf 3 remotely but sadly the Dwarflab software doesn’t really work well with that (there is a workaround but its not ideal).

Anyway, enjoy your Dwarf 3, it’s great. I also use it for landscape timelapses for things like sunsets!

I suppose in the end nothing will be worth the effort as we all get identical results. After all, the subject never changes! You may as well take a picture with your phone of the PC screen and say “look what I have done”

My choice is simple. Whatever makes me and others happy… Whatever makes people more interested in astronomy and science.

I’m both a professional and amateur astronomer. I dedicated my life to education. Partly because I did not grow up in a wealthy family. I understand the value of “opportunity”. I did not have the money to buy a telescope. We did not have a backyard. Or having a dream of having a home with a backyard. I saved for years just to buy a cheap DSLR.

Meanwhile, people who taught me astrophotography could spend thousands of dollars and have a dark sky backyard. I’d be lying if I said that did not make me feel bad. Not that I was having bad feelings toward them, on the contrary, they kept me in this field. But being unable to do it myself was frustrating.

Now, after 15 years, I am finishing my PhD in astrophysics, and have been working at NASA/APOD for 5 years. For the first time in my life, I had money to buy my own equipment. Even for that, I needed to do extra work for a year. Not to mention the effort I put in to become an expert in that field.

But today, I was outside, along with only a few other crazy people. My eyelashes were frozen due to the polar vortex. This is UP Michigan. And I still don’t have a backyard. I can’t image from here.

I’m grateful that we have a remote observatory option. I’m grateful for people who made it affordable even for a student like me. I’m taking a lot of great photos. I also now share my data with students, like me, who are not able to afford any of these. This sometimes supports education here at Michigan Tech as well. And a week ago, we had an art gallery with other local artists, too. Babak Tafreshi was our special guest; he honored us.

The remote observatory enabled me to contribute to this field and society. It would certainly not be better for anyone if it weren’t there.

It is a great feeling to work hands-on. I know. But for some, it is not a possibility. For others, it is not the preferred choice.

We shall not value one over the other. I believe they all have a unique contribution to the great society here, and I’m grateful for everyone who is continuing it.

Kay Ogetay:
We shall not value one over the other.

Remote or backyard ?

I love working on the equipment and developing new hardware, but my ultimate goal is taking pictures and that’s the real problem where I live : the city center of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Last year, I only had 39% clear spells in the night and only 20% full clear nights, which means only 10 weeks I was able to take uninterrupted pictures in the night, the main reason I’m preparing to place all my equipment at a remote site in the southern part of Spain with at least 35 weeks of clear weather and a much better dark sky (SQM 21-22) instead of SQM 18-19 at home.

Arun H · Jan 24, 2026, 04:42 PM

Kay Ogetay:
We shall not value one over the other.

Hi Kay - respectfully - it is up to each individual imager what they choose to value, and whether they choose to value one type of imaging over the another.

Hi Arun. I agree that individual preference matters. My point wasn’t about telling people what to value personally, but about not creating a hierarchy that discourages or excludes others from participating. I think we have enough of that in our world.

Different paths can coexist, and all can contribute meaningfully. As you said, we can all choose what we value, and I choose not to rank one approach over another.

Best,