Telescope Ranchers

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.