Since 2014 I have been imaging remotely from a site on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, here in California.

In 2014, at AIC (advanced imaging conference), I first became acquainted with the concept of remote imaging, and specifically with the site of Sierra Remote Observatories.

At the time, I had just started to get serious about this hobby, but I could not see myself renting a pier and owning a completely automated system that would operate semi-autonomously 600 miles from home.

However, roughly a year later I became part of a group of five fellow imagers who pooled together some gear and some money, and leased a pier for a year to deploy a Takahashi FSQ106 on a Paramount ME mount. 

The setup was modest by SRO standards, but worked well for the whole year and allowed me to process about 40 targets, with almost 1000 hours of great data.

Part of that group bailed after a year, including the fellow who owned most of the equipment, but I decided that this was the way to go, so after advertising on astro- clubs and forums I met (virtually) a gentleman who was happy to make his great equipment available in exchange for us hosting and managing it at SRO.

Another group was formed and since May 2015 I  have enjoyed getting data through a Ceravolo CDK300 f/4.9 mounted on an AP1100  with absolute encoders. The massive FLI PL16803 camera produced beautiful wide field images.