New telescope T70 at Deep Sky Chile

[PMSchu]

Hi All,

Just received notice that iTelescope has opened a new scope in Chile. The name is T70 at Deep Sky Chile.

Phil S.

[theskyhound]

Thanks for the heads up. I will upload a set up for this new scope as soon as I get back to my office on Tuesday.

[theskyhound]

So I am having a lot of trouble getting T70 set up in SkyTools. Because it is somewhat unique for an iTelescope, in that is is an astronomical CMOS camera attached to telephoto lens, there is more than one way to model it. I have been trying to get some images so I can test that everything is working, but between the internet going down in Chile, my reservations disappearing as if they never existed, and the telescope crashing with errors, I have so far not been able to manage enough images to verify my set up. I will keep trying!

[PMSchu]

Hi Greg,

T40 in Chile was also prone to problems. While the site appears to be fantastic, the implementation appears to be full of problems. I've never been able to log onto the scope despite several attempts. I haven't paid much attention to it.

Would you like me to try to get some images on T70 for you? If so what Targets would you prefer? The FTP connection to your system might still be available since I had to send you that big file.

One the other hand, it might be better if I don't use T70 so I don't interfere with one of your observations. I think they're charging for the novelty.

Updating the filter names is of more interest to me. Hopefully they can provide the filter transmission data.

Phil S.

[theskyhound]

No worries on T70. I'll get some images eventually. iTelescope has a whole lot of new hires, including a quality manager. So hopefully things will get better overall. They are also finally making an effort to include me on changes, which would be awesome. One problem is that since these scopes are individually owned, the owner can apparently make basic changes, such as the filters on T16, and then they have to ask the owner what filters were installed. I am currently waiting to hear back from the T16 owner. Hopefully that will be soon.

[theskyhound]

I have tried T70 every night for several days in a row, but its been generating an internal error. Something about not being able to contact another computer. I had a reservation earlier tonight, and I got an email saying that my plan had been started and then nothing after that. When I logged into the system, another reservation seemed to be working fine. But there are no logs at all for my earlier reservation, at both places that logs can be found, which is extremely annoying! So I have no idea why my plan failed. None. It's as if it never existed, and this is the second time that has happened.

[PMSchu]

Maybe Dr. Sasse can help.

Phil S.

[theskyhound]

I work directly with the people at iTelescope, but what happens at a remote site like Chile is often beyond their control. It looks like more trouble is related to their internet connection than I first suspected. My data sometimes shows up days later (I just found logs for the 26th this morning), so its a good idea to wait and keep checking, but the emails with all of the external data, like the sky conditions, are still lost. I'm also not clear on how much I'm being charged! But they did warn that T70 is in limited testing, after all. Its just frustrating for me because I know people would like to have these iTelescopes added to SkyTools.