Four days later, and still no images from BRT. No big deal, but the queue seems to be rather long.
Update 25 August: a week after registration, the first four images came through. Quite good tempo, I think.
Update nr 2 26 August: yet four more images came through the queue.
Update nr 3 28 August: two more images. Summing up, ten images came through during eleven days. If this is typical of the average throughput of the BRT system, 3 pounds per month seems like a very good price, compared to Sierra Stars and iTelescope.
Update nr 4 17 September: one month, 20 completed images. Cheaper and deeper than iTelescope.
Update nr 5 17 October: yet another month, in which 27 images were taken. The tempo is quite OK.
Update nr 6 17 November: 19 images this month. After three months, the average cost per image lies at 14 pence = 22 US cents = 1.6 SEK. For comparison, the minimum price over at Sierra Stars (30 seconds on the Rigel 37 cm Cassegrain) is 42 US cents, while a 30 second exposure on iTel 5 (25 cm Newton) is 58 cents (lower when there’s a moonlight reduction in price).
So, not surprisingly BRT turns out to be cheapest of the three compared systems. That doesn’t mean that I will leave Sierra Stars and iTel for BRT. The latter system is cheaper, but I have greater control over what images will be taken, and when, using Sierra Stars and BRT.
I have kind of taken to BRT, though. The images are great, even though there’s often some trailing but I can live with that for my photometry of variable stars, they reach deep. The user interface is quite good, just like Sierra Stars it is of the fire-and-forget variety, iTel takes a bit more handling to get going, what with booking the scope and everything. And the BRT tempo suits me; roughly 20 images a month leads to images showing up every once in a while, perfect for some photometry during lunch breaks.
