* Photo: Raymond Biesinger * Urban astro-nerds, rejoice! The smog and lights of the city will obscure your view of the heavens no more. And your star photography will twinkle. Now you can go online to access high-quality scopes at dark-sky sites worldwide and order them to take photos for you — cheaply or for free, and at decent resolution. It may take some preparation, but even if the results aren't exactly Hubble-icious, there's something out-of-this-world about playing astronomer for a night.

Bradford Robotic Telescope

www.Telescope.org

Telescope 14-inch-diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain

Location Tenerife, Canary Islands

Field of view From the north celestial pole to 52 degrees south

Pictures back in Days, sometimes weeks

Results 1,056 x 1,027-pixel color or black-and-white JPEGs

Cost Free

Micro-Observatory

mo-www.cfa.harvard.edu/MicroObservatory

Telescope 6-inch-diameter Maksutov

Location Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Amado, Arizona

Field of view Northern celestial hemisphere to 48 degrees south

Pictures back in Days, often overnight

Results 650 x 500-pixel black-and-white GIFs

Cost Free

Seeing in the Dark

www.pbs.org/seeinginthedark/explore-the-sky

Telescope 14-inch-diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain

Location Mayhill, New Mexico

Field of view Northern celestial hemisphere to about 45 degrees south

Pictures back in Days to weeks

Results 512 x 512-pixel black-and-white JPEGs

Cost Free

Slooh

www.slooh.com

Telescope Two 14-inch-diameter Schmidt-Cassegrains — one for planets, the other for deep space

Location Tenerife, Canary Islands, and Santiago, Chile

Field of view Northern and southern celestial hemispheres

Pictures back in Seconds

Results 800 x 600-pixel color JPEGs

Cost $100 per year for unlimited images

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