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Hourly Imaging - How Tokens Work

Sign up

  • Choose which membership option that suits your needs and register.

  • Silver is free for life and entitles you to our standard PAYGO hourly rates

  • Gold membership costs €100 yearly but will save you a significant amount on our hourly pricing rates, amongst other benefits

Membership Page

Purchase your Tokens

Depending upon your membership level that you have chosen, which can be gold or silver, you can now purchase tokens which are available in blocks of 25 upwards. The more token you purchase the cheaper they become, making hourly remote imaging a very affordable proposition.

The tokens are for life, you can use them anytime you wish as they will not expire

Tokens Page

Pick your Telescope

  • Choose your object by name or coordinates

  • Pick which on of our systems suits your needs we have plenty to choose from with wide ranging FOV and focal lengths

  • You're the imager, so you choose integration time, filters & sub lengths

  • Pricing is by the hour - You only pay for your total imaging time. You do not pay for plate solving, focusing or even guider settling

  • Relax - we got you, our automated systems then calculate the best times to gather your data. We take horizons and the moon avoidance so your never imaging to close to the moon or to low down.

Equipment Overview

Receive Your Data

  • Download your data - it will be in your "Nexus" area

  • Data remains on our servers for 2-4 weeks.

  • Process in to a masterpiece!

  • Share with the world

Our Hourly system - The Nuts & bolts

Our location:

Latitude:   38° 13' 10.89" North
Longitude:   6° 37' 54.32" West
Altitude:   560 metres
Timezone: Western Europe

If you are new to our system you may wish to start by using our object search box as this will input the coordinates for you and propagate the name of the object properly, alternatively more advanced uses can input by coordinates only for more individual framing if they prefer. camera rotation angles are available on the equipment page

After you have placed your order your image request will be added to our system which prioritises orders based on an algorithm that takes into account lots of factors like;

  • Horizon Limits

  • Meridian

  • Moon below horizon

  • Rising & Setting times

  • Moon avoidance in relation to chosen filters

Broadband filters orders generally take longer to complete than narrowband orders as the moon has less of an impact with narrowband imaging which allows you to gather more narrowband data throughout the month. Hydrogen Alpha for instance is very forgiving even with a full moon.

Depending upon some of the above as well as weather and sky conditions it may take anything from 7-28 days to deliver your data so when booking please use foresight and don’t book an object setting on the west not long after astronomical dark or one that only rises to 30degree above the horizon for 90 minutes. In essence be smart about it 😀

 Please choose objects that are rising or on the east side or closer to the meridian. If on the west side make sure they are placed high in the sky as it will give us the ability to complete your order in a timely manner. If however, you still book an object while ignoring our recommendations we will do our best to fufill your request unless we feel it is an impossible  task.

  • Our booking form will give suggestions for sub lengths for each filter depending on type of target you choose, LRGB Narrowband, Dark nebular etc. Experienced users will obviously choose there own sub lengths

  • The booking form also contains field of view as well as pixel scale measurements

  • Online library of calibration files for standard sub lengths, special calibration files lengths are available upon request

  • Upon completion of your order you will be emailed a link to download your data from, this link will remain live for 2 weeks

  • Please be aware our booking form is charged by the hour, if you choose over 3600seconds in total in imaging time you will be charged for the next full hour on so on!

Imaging seasons

Spain's main imaging season is late spring until early winter, we have 2 periods of unpredictable weather due to the Atlantic basin westerlies being the main driving force for the whole of the lower Mediterranean area.

Late autumn/Early winter - a shorter high haze/humidity period with some rain
Late winter/Early Spring - A longer period of high rain levels

We do get imaging periods during these times but they vary in length and cannot be predicted 

During these periods, we suggest checking the weather forecast before placing your request so we are able to collect the data efficiently for you in a reasonable timescale, especially if it's a data set with time constraints or a transient nature.

Low Cost!

Very low hourly rates

New dawn for remote telescope data pricing!

Don't take our word for it, have a look at our pricing page and you'll see affordable telescope time for professional and amateur use.

These are not introductory rates, they're just great rates.

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