alt.hn

6/16/2026 at 10:34:10 AM

Telescope Ranchers

 https://kottke.org/26/06/telescope-ranchers

by bookofjoe

6/19/2026 at 6:24:21 PM

Really great idea! But one still has to buy a telescope and send it to this guy, I think it would be cool if one could just rent everything at once. For non-serious people that have a lot of money that they would like to put to use looking at the stars. Or maybe a time-share like concept.

by jimmy76615

6/20/2026 at 12:10:52 AM

Maybe they could just like look at photos someone else has taken? If you are using someone else’s equipment, at a location you’ve never been too, it feels like you may as well just look at bubbles images of things.

by gehsty

6/20/2026 at 6:24:54 AM

> Maybe they could just like look at photos someone else has taken? If you are using someone else’s equipment, at a location you’ve never been too, it feels like you may as well just look at bubbles images of things.

Yes.. this is an interesting philosophical question about the hobby.

If you just rent some time one someone else's telescope on some location you don't visit, to take some photos.. how different is that from simply looking at the photos on astrophotography websites, which will be better than anything you can do anyway (unless you spend insane amounts of time and money)? So what's the point?

I enjoy astrophotography but I don't have a good location nor great equipment. But my line in the sand is that anything I print out and frame on the wall has to be taken by me controlling my telescope while sitting next to it. Only that way it feels the effort is mine and the photo is mine, so I can feel proud of it. Even though the quality is far inferior to what I could download from the web. But I have a few really nice photos and I feel good about them.

by jjav

6/19/2026 at 7:22:53 PM

Nothing stopping you from buying a few scopes, sending them to him, then subletting access. :-)

by js2

6/19/2026 at 8:27:26 PM

You mean AaaS (Astronomy as a Service)

by rkagerer

6/19/2026 at 8:16:41 PM

iTelescope does exactly what you’re outlining. There used to be a few others but I think they have mostly died out. I assume the economics don’t really work out.

by theresistor

6/19/2026 at 6:19:00 PM

> from as little as 99 USD a month

> 550 telescopes

So about ~55 to 60k USD a month to just have some telescopes on your land? Nice little earner.

by mattlondon

6/19/2026 at 7:24:44 PM

I'm sure it's a lot of work for him, mostly maintenance and cleaning. Also it sounds like the remote operation hardware and software are provided by him-- that can't be trivial and probably means he doesn't break even on a given telescope for a few months at least. Plus whatever it costs him to recruit new customers.

I bet he makes a good living on his labor and whatever capital he has tied up in the land, but it doesn't sound like an easy business.

by thatoneengineer

6/20/2026 at 9:02:08 AM

> Also it sounds like the remote operation hardware and software are provided by him

As a backyard astrophotographer, this hardware and software is pretty much standard even if you don’t send your equipment to a remote site and is part of the kit you send to the remote site.

While you can still manually point your telescope if you wanted, I don’t think many who are in the hobby still do this. Most people will use so-called ‘GoTo’ mounts. You basically tell it where to point and it will automatically do so and keep tracking that location (to compensate for the rotation of our planet).

It’s a little bit more involved than I’m describing it but not much.

by Aaargh20318

6/20/2026 at 7:58:28 AM

Customer support. Don't forget customer support.

by tgsovlerkhgsel

6/20/2026 at 12:02:40 AM

I think it's literally just the pier, power and an ethernet connection provided and you use the software of the mount and image sensor combo you own through their internet.

by rtkwe

6/19/2026 at 7:17:42 PM

He's got 10 barns with retractable roofs to maintain, plus he offers maintenance of the scopes themselves. On top of that, it sounds like a full time business he's running. But yeah, a very nice business.

by js2

6/19/2026 at 6:51:19 PM

Far from unique! There were and are telescope hosters in the Atacama Desert, which is as good as it can possibly be for the amateurs.

by orbital-decay

6/19/2026 at 5:15:15 PM

We need more of this. Thanks for making the world more awesome!

by jmward01

6/19/2026 at 7:14:58 PM

mostly unrelated, but over the last few weeks I've gone down a rabbit hole having claude write scripts to label videos I shoot through night vision.

If you want to see my progress (mostly gated by the sky): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOgT48pM4GctL_nuv37vc...

I want to get it pointing out overflights and satellites by name, but I'm not there yet.

by RyJones

6/19/2026 at 6:50:58 PM

What do people do with this astronomical data?

Why do they pay for this?

by asxndu

6/19/2026 at 7:22:01 PM

Astrophotography is a hobby like any other. People enjoy capturing their own images of the universe.

Most hobbies with gear have setup costs and it's not unusual for that to be in the several thousand dollar range, and maintenance costs. $100-400/month for a hobby isn't all that much and it gives you exclusive access to your own scope in ideal skies that you can operate from your home.

by js2

6/19/2026 at 7:32:17 PM

Cool, makes sense.

by asxndu

6/19/2026 at 10:28:17 PM

I'm putting one of the modern "Smart Scopes" on my Christmas list this year.

I had a friend with a 10" Meade with which not much happened. Just a bear to lug around and set up and mess with, not even including trying bumble through getting astrophotography started.

But the new-ish Smart Scopes looks fun and accessible, so gonna see if I can get one of those to play with.

by whartung

6/20/2026 at 12:15:08 AM

To get into Astrophotographg you probably need to spend £2-3k for some equipment, if you are based somewhere like the north of England this translates to a handful of clear nights per year. Sending your equipment here gives you an order of magnitude more clear nights.

I wouldn’t do this as I like the fact my photos are taken in my back yard but each to their own

by gehsty

6/20/2026 at 7:55:31 AM

I saw an interview with the owner, one point he brought up in addition to atmospheric clarity is that many people need a long travel time to get away from light pollution, reducing available nights even further.

by bonesss

6/19/2026 at 7:31:38 PM

Why do people get into birdwatching?

It's a hobby, there doesn't need to be much in the way of novel "data" for it to be rewarding. Though considering this guy found a nebula I wouldn't be surprised if there was some. The universe is big (citation needed) and good hobbyist telescopes are quite powerful; you have a lot of sky to explore and could easily be getting the best images ever of any particular patch of it.

by thatoneengineer

6/19/2026 at 5:27:04 PM

I would never have thought of this, but it is really cool. Living in the city with light pollution, we can see a dozen or so on the best nights.

What an ingenious business idea.

by solomonneas

6/19/2026 at 8:34:09 PM

You’d be amazed what even a small smart telescope can see even in Bortle 9 urban skies.

I have one of the mentioned SeeStar smart telescopes, and have been quite successful in taking photos of both galaxies and nebulas from the rooftop of my apartment building in the middle of a city.

Sure, it takes time. Sure, it would be faster/better under darker skies. But it’s not impossible!

by theresistor

6/20/2026 at 12:16:09 AM

Modern stacking algo negate this entirely for amateur photographers

by gehsty

6/19/2026 at 5:49:50 PM

Colter Mccorkindale’s comment is the best part.

“Sooo....the stars at night really are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas?”

by elictronic

6/19/2026 at 5:05:36 PM

Not, in fact, optical interferometry :(

by genpfault

6/19/2026 at 5:10:26 PM

sadly won't be possible for anything serious next decade as each space trillionaire and country launches their own 10,000+ constellations

sky will be constantly twinkling, will be weird

we'll have to switch to space telescopes above LEO

https://satellitemap.space

by ck2

6/19/2026 at 5:54:29 PM

You misunderstand the issue. It’s a significant problem for some kinds of observations and largely irrelevant to others.

Satellites don’t include light sources and there’s nothing to illuminate them when in earth’s shadow. In order to interfere with light based astronomy they need to be outside of earths shadow and someone needs to be actively taking a picture of that chunk of sky. As these satellites orbit close to earth almost the entire sky is clear near solar midnight.

Major ground based telescopes can also add a shutter to block light detection for the fraction of a second a satellite would interfere. Basically at increasing magnification you’re looking at an ever smaller percentage of the sky which means the odds of a satellite, even one of millions, being in the shot for a given second is low. It’s still an issue, but being 99.X% as effective is good enough not to be a major concern.

Where it’s a concern is whole sky observation where you can’t easily add a shutter and losing a significant portion of the sky every night is a real problem. Amateur astronomy has the same basic options, but will often run into avoidable issues.

by Retric

6/19/2026 at 9:13:48 PM

In most amateur imaging you can trade time for quality. By stacking enough images, satellite trails get averaged out of the final image.

Very high end amateurs get pissy about it because they paid a lot of money for high end equipment to minimize imaging times, but for the rest of us it’s not a huge impediment as we already needed lots of subframes to get high SNR anyways.

by theresistor

6/20/2026 at 12:58:51 AM

Averaging isn't the only option. It's possible to use other image-processing techniques which look at outlier values. This is way outside my area of expertise, but I believe sigma clipping is one of the standard go-tos, see:

<https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Sigma...>.

More generally, you're clipping outliers:

<https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuastro/manual/html_node/Clipp...>.

This applies not only to satellite tracks, but meteors, cosmic rays, and other artefacts introduced into image capture. The techniques should be generally applicable, though for those who are specifically exploring transitory phenomena, this introduces additional challenges.

by dredmorbius

6/20/2026 at 3:49:36 AM

That’s an option. However, these satellites provide a predictable path so you don’t needed to detect them from image data. Which means you can even prevent them from showing up on long analog film exposures.

by Retric

6/19/2026 at 5:15:00 PM

I’m seeking funding to open up a rail gun ranch where you can sit in your lawn chair and blow satellites out of the sky.

by zippyman55

6/19/2026 at 10:52:52 PM

Lasers would probably be more practical. Maybe a whole array of lasers w. telescopes? At (say) 500 km, a 20 cm aperture would have a spot size of maybe 50 cm. So let's take that telescope array, hook a kW laser to each one, and roast some LEO satellites?

(Note: this is not an actual suggestion this be done.)

by pfdietz

6/20/2026 at 2:29:04 AM

I know you are joking on this one, as I was on mine. But with people being arrested for shining pet toy lasers at objects, best everyone stay clear of this one.

by zippyman55

6/19/2026 at 11:10:13 PM

I’m working on a DaaS startup (drone as a service) so maybe I’ll locate next to you and your customers can blow drones out of the sky and mine will keep having to replace theirs.

by ninjalanternshk

6/20/2026 at 12:01:20 AM

I like where you are going with this. Can you offer “hardened” drones for the advanced players?

by zippyman55

6/19/2026 at 5:17:02 PM

Probably legal in Texas? If it's directly over "your land?"

by tedd4u

6/19/2026 at 5:54:25 PM

If your application says it is meant to hunt feral hogs, then they will allow it.

by dylan604

6/19/2026 at 8:39:43 PM

This may be a good plan B pivot! Join now and get a free lawn chair!

by zippyman55

6/19/2026 at 5:57:09 PM

Feral hogs IN SPAAAAACE!

by throwup238

6/19/2026 at 5:22:51 PM

Kessler‘s farm?

by adrianN

6/19/2026 at 5:20:37 PM

I'm thinking of "space roombas" that glide around and bump all the sats in LEO into the atmosphere like a game of pool

Only problem is they are toxic as they burn up and create a lot of pollution

* https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...

(too bad gravity is impossible to overcome cheaply or do the opposite and yeet into sun)

by ck2

6/20/2026 at 1:03:58 AM

If you have to yeet space trash to a gravitational well, Jupiter is probably the more attractive option. Lower delta-V, still a large well, and so long as you get reasonably close, orbital decay should solve the problem eventually.

For de-orbiting LEO satellites, electrodynamic tethers is probably the most viable active method:

"Study on electrodynamic tether system for space debris removal"

<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00945...>

by dredmorbius