Patent ID: 8671196

Claim:
A method for providing access to a plurality of telescopes, comprising: receiving, at a remote data processing facility, a user request via at least one computer network to view a specified celestial object; determining, using software instructions, at the remote data processing facility, one or more telescopes, out of the plurality of telescopes, from which the specified celestial object is viewable and one or more times at which the specified celestial object is viewable; accessing, at the remote data processing facility, at least one source of information relating to the one or more determined telescopes including weather conditions at locations of the plurality of telescopes; selecting, using the software instructions at the data processing facility and based at least on the weather conditions at the location of each of the of the one or more determined telescopes, a telescope out of the one or more determined telescopes and a time out of the one or more determined times at which the selected telescope can suitably view the specified celestial object; and obtaining image data of the specified celestial object from the selected telescope.