Exploration is not only about discovering what lies beyond the mountain, across the lake, or around the next bend in the trail—it’s also about gazing into the sky above and the vastness beyond. At rockchucksummit.com, we’re passionate about exploring our planet and the cosmos, and we’re excited to share our journeys with you, wherever they may lead us and, more importantly, where they can take you!
That’s right, join us as we explore the cosmos and become a member of our remote imaging club today and gain access to our exquisite dark-sky data. No experience, camera, telescope required. We’ll help you learn how to download, process and create images you can share, print, sell or do whatever with. If you already have astrophotography gear you can even use our data to supplement your imaging runs!
Introductory Pricing! Act Today!
As this service has just launched on 7/1/2024, we are offering special early bird pricing. Sign up now for a perpetual account and join us in capturing the wonders of the universe for a one-time fee of $99. This is a $200 discount on our ANNUAL membership, so don’t hesitate—act now!
Yes, this means you never have to worry about renewals, subscriptions, annual fees or anything like points and credits or anything like that. We want to welcome YOU to the amazing world of Astronomy and Astrophotography! We already have over 115gigs of imaging data for you to explore as of 7/17/24!
Member benefits:
- Unlimited Downloads – Data sets are stored online with fast S3 delivery.
- Discord – Live updates from automation, screen sharing, live discussions, Community interaction.
- Imaging requests – Submit your target of interest and get it on our imaging calendar.
- PixInsight workshops – live & recorded workshops for using PixInsight.
- Siril Workshops – live and recorded workshops for using Siril.
- More coming soon! We look forward to sharing what we’re planning for “Galaxy Season” as we add some deep focal length capability to our imaging rig!
- Imaging live streams – lets have fun and learn together!
- all-sky camera – see what is happening in our dark skies
Example Master sub for Ha (3nm Antlia Filters)
Download sample images and raw fits data from our Observatory.
Get started today!
Contact us with any questions!
Observatory
Why a remote observatory?
Light pollution is a growing issue globally, and astrophotographers often struggle to capture the cosmos from their backyards. Our objective is to offer our supporters data from the pristine skies of West Texas, which fall within the Bortle 1-2 rating, indicating an Excellent/Dark sky site.
Experience the heavens like never before.
Our Technology
Our imaging camera is a ZWO ASI-6200 MM with a 7 slot 2″ filter wheel with LRGB SHO filters.
Images will be captured with Narrowband SHO 3nm filters or broadband LRGB.
Our Focal Ratio is 4.9. Resolution is 3.1″x3.1″ per pixel and our field of view will be 8.24 degrees by 5×5 degrees with a Dawes Limit of 2.27 arc/secs.
With our advanced camera system, we can remotely rotate our camera to frame objects in best frame to capture as much of the nearby nebulosity, clusters or celestial objects.
Our software is fully automated with advanced imaging, horizon and moon avoidance systems to optimize our imaging for all available imaging hours.
Our beautiful Paramount MX 6 can do unguided exposures up to 20 minutes with our pixel scale and guided for much longer! Our 3nm Antlia Pro SHO filters need some long exposures in these dark skies!
Data will be provided on a secured high speed S3 object store organized by objects of interest (and their surrounding objects) available by download 24×7.
Non-Restrictive Licensing
This data is your data. These are your skies. We just ask for attribution for helping make this possible.
- the freedom to use the work and enjoy the benefits of using it.
- the freedom to study the work and to apply the knowledge acquired from it.
- the freedom to make and redistribute copies, in whole or in part, of the information or expression.
- the freedom to make changes and improvements, and to distribute derivative works.