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.
That second link is a per capita. So not specific to an area. Just a population figure.
That includes people who have never seen smoke from a brush fire. Kind of ambiguous.
Only thing I’ll say is that Chad and I image from the same location. The last few years have been complete duds from a summer imaging standpoint, which was very different than what my experience was in the 2017-2020 timeframe where large numbers of us would spend most clear summer nights at dark sky parks. So this graph agrees with my personal experience and what we have seen reported.
Arun H · Apr 14, 2026 at 08:31 PM
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).
It is shocking to see how badly N. NM fairs with regard to smoke. I enjoyed having my scope at DSW in N. NM for 5-years or so but the conditions were simply not that great. Spring and Fall were the best conditions but wind was always a consideration. Summer was shut down pretty consistently with monsoons and smoke. Winter was tough with snow storms, fog, wind, frost and frequent high, thin clouds. Conditions below about 1.5” seeing were relatively rare.
My advice is that if you haven’t done remote imaging before, picking a “good” location, even if it isn’t perfect”, will be life changing. It will allow you to learn how it works and to experience (and overcome) all the difficulties that come with remote operations. Use your time there to evaluate the conditions and to look at other options. It is very hard to move your equipment to a new location but it is doable—particularly if you are located in the US. Things get harder when you go international. Plan to be there at least 1-2 years before making any decision about moving.
You are doing the right thing to ask around before you sign up. Cost, weather, AND accessibility are the three big things to consider. On-site service is important but in my experience, being able to easily visit your gear to work on it yourself is far more important. On-site service is most useful for addressing minor glitches rather than major retrofits or troubleshooting. So, figure out how long and involved it is to make a trip out there. If it’s your first remote scope, you may be making more trips out there in the beginning than you expect. You should also figure out where you stay when you go out there. This is something that was initially a problem at Obstech when I went down there. After some gentle urging, they listened and they now have some really nice accommodations for visitors and that has made a HUGE difference!
Good luck with it Arun! Remote imaging is really a lot of fun and I look forward to hearing how it goes for you.
John
All this makes me wonder about the middle ground between the back yard and full up paid remote hosting. This wouldn’t work for everyone of course but building your own little remote controlled observatory could be a fun project for those of us who love to tinker and have access one way or the other to a postage stamp of land somewhere. Given the cost of hosting a larger rig, it in some cases could almost be cost effective.
John Hayes · Apr 15, 2026, 07:26 PM
My advice is that if you haven’t done remote imaging before, picking a “good” location, even if it isn’t perfect”, will be life changing. It will allow you to learn how it works and to experience (and overcome) all the difficulties that come with remote operations. Use your time there to evaluate the conditions and to look at other options. It is very hard to move your equipment to a new location but it is doable—particularly if you are located in the US. Things get harder when you go international. Plan to be there at least 1-2 years before making any decision about moving.
Thanks for the detailed feedback, John. I guess when I look at how these facilities are priced, it becomes a matter of you getting what you pay for. So there will be some compromises involved. I would love to put a scope in Chile, and I can now see why so many do it, but I’m not retired, so travel will be a consideration. It certainly is easier to fly to New Mexico, Arizona, or Texas than it is to travel to Chile.
I host at Starfront and SRO. I was looking to move over to DSP from Starfront, but SRO made some accommodations for me. I had some issues over at SFO that made me uncomfortable, so I pulled my long focal length and expensive refractor rigs from them and sent them to the west coast. SF is a great option for wide field imaging and does ok up to about 1500mm focal length. I wouldn’t send anything longer than that to SF. The wind there can be a problem as well, and the dust, holy crap! Overall I think either site will be a good option for your rig. SF skies are very dark, but they have less clear nights than NM and the seeing can be quite bad as well. What you get with SF is affordability, dark skies and some assurances that your gear is safe and covered. With DSP, for me, the appeal was a little bit cleaner and better customer service as well as dark skies and the assurances that gear will be safe and covered. And just an overall better feeling of professionalism. With my dual refractor rig at SRO, the clear nights were really what sold me. And you can place a tripod there for about the same price as DSP. For a lot of people SF is a great option. But for me personally I would rather pay a little bit more to have a more personalized and professional customer service experience. But this is just my personal experience with SF. I know some people there that couldn’t be happier. I will say, sending my iDK to SRO from SF, I got more data in the first 3 months there than I did in a full year at SF. Hope this helps! Either choice will be a good option for you though!
Hi Ryan,
Thank you for the very detailed feedback and for taking the time to write it. Your post and John’s have been very helpful in framing the criteria by which I need to make a determination.