Hello,
I am considering sending my 110mm refractor to DSP remote. I am interested in feedback from people who have scopes there. Specific things I am interested i are:
How many clear nights per month do you get and how does this vary with time of year
What are seeing conditions like?
Thanks!
I used to live in Las Cruces where I think conditions are similar. I think about 280 clear nights a year is a good baseline. Spring is the windy/dusty season. Wind can be a factor so the more wind resistant your rig, the better. Summer is the fire season so luck of the draw there. Monsoon season is roughly July through early early September. You can expect fewer usable nights during those months. Mid-September to mid-November is generally really good with long runs of usable nights. Unless you are in a special place, seeing in general is pretty poor in southern NM. The large temperature delta between day and night tends to keep things stirred up. You certainly don’t want to be over-sampled.
Thank you, Tony.
It seems from what you are sharing that it should be something less than 280 nights? If the summer is lost due to fire (an almost certain bet these days) and spring is compromised by dust, that should leave roughly six months of the year roughly clear. So it seems the number of usable nights should be closer to 200? This is what holds me back.
It would help to know exactly what DSP stands for.
Deep Space Products. DSP Remote Telescope Hosting
Arun H · Apr 13, 2026, 05:57 PM
Thank you, Tony.
It seems from what you are sharing that it should be something less than 280 nights? If the summer is lost due to fire (an almost certain bet these days) and spring is compromised by dust, that should leave roughly six months of the year roughly clear. So it seems the number of usable nights should be closer to 200? This is what holds me back.
I think how many nights would be usable for you really depends on how you shoot and what constraints your particular rig has. It will be super dark so that might offset some things.
I had an observatory 60 miles from there for 4 years, up to a week ago, and the seeing is great for that area. I am not sure how many night we had per year, but I had more data than I could shake a stick at.
Ed is very helpful as well.
How does this rate against Starfront? Are the skies that much better at DSP to justify the higher cost? I have AT92/AM5 rig ready to send out to a remote site and wasn’t even aware that DSP offered hosting. Other than DSP and Starfront, the other options are just too out of reach for my budget. The wildfire thing is a big issue for me. I’ve been getting smoked out at home every summer for years now, due to western and Canadian wildfires. Having that happen on the regular at DSP makes it a non-starter. I’ve been following Starfront for awhile now and have not seen much reported in the way of having imaging ruined by dust or smoke, either on their Discord server or on other sites/searches.
I think fire is going to be a possibility anywhere you have woodlands and the smoke travels far. In most cases it’s really a matter of pay your money and take your chances.
Michael Rushalko · Apr 13, 2026, 06:06 PM
Deep Space Products. DSP Remote Telescope Hosting
Well, Thank You, Michael.
Good to know it’s not Department of Sanitation and Parks. 🙃
I was able to find this file that shows a map of number of days affected by wildfire smoke at various places in the US. Based on this, I’d say that there are very few places in the west and southwest that would not be affected by smoke to some degree (40-60 days/year). This map dates back to 2022 so things are a lot worse now, I’m sure.
2023Smoke_AnnualAverage_en_title_lg.jpg
I was not able to find a map, but you can see how much worse things have gotten since 2020, see below.
Kind of shocking that only a tiny area in the east gets 20 days or less a year.