system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If an experiment were conducted outside of an academic environment (e.g., in a home-based DIY laboratory), could the results still be published in a peer-reviewed journal?

**tl,dr: see post title. For further information, keep reading.**

Let's pretend that a *previous* mentor (ex-mentor) has recently retired, offering you some of his/her outdated laboratory equipment. However, you cannot install this equipment in your *current* mentor's laboratory due to space constraints. Thus, you suggest setting up a home laboratory - in a garage, basement, shed... wherever - using the donated equipment. 

You used this equipment daily while working in your ex-mentor's laboratory, so you can use it and troubleshoot it like a pro. Once it is installed, calibration and diagnostic checks demonstrate that the devices are in optimal condition. To be on the safe side, you replicate an experiment you previously conducted in your ex-mentor's academic lab space. You find that your newly-collected data is identical to your previous data, suggesting that the changed setting has not impaired the reliability of any facets of experimental design. You have a novel research question that can be adequately explored with the type of data collected by your [fully armed and operational] home lab. After some intense brainstorming, you derive four hypotheses that are capable of directly supporting your research question. 

However, you don't yet have adequate "street cred" in your field of study. You are currently enrolled as a graduate student, although you have co-authored several publications, including one "first author" article. As well, your current mentor is a new assistant professor; a great mentor, but still trying to make a name for him/herself in your field of study. Additionally, your institution is not particularly prestigious... but this may be irrelevant to the point, given that the research would be conducted outside of your university. 

Given all this information, I'd like to see what others' opinions are regarding how such research would be seen in academia, and in particular, by journals. If you submitted a manuscript on the basis of data collected in your home laboratory, would they even give it the time of day? Do editors and reviewers have to see an institution on a submission before they'd consider spending their time on it? Keep in mind that I am not trolling for a debate on "how the academic publishing system is so fucked up, blah blah." If it helps, this is another way to frame it: What is the probability that research conducted in an "informal" environment would be accepted for publication by a journal, given that you can demonstrate the reliability of collected data, and that those conducting the research have academic credentials?
gpt
In the field of Astronomy, there are a number of papers published by those who aren't affiliated with a major research facility.   In many cases, it's variable star research, although there have been some publications on asteroids and comets as well.