RGO Astrophotographer of the year...

[Peter Ward]

I was delighted to receive an email this morning from the RGO, whom had shortlisted two of my entries in this year's comp.

http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery20.html
and
http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery45.html

But as Strongmanmike has pointed out, they may be ineligible, as the time and print restrictions to entries may all apply to all images, not just "newcomer" entrants as I first thought.

As a result, I've emailed the RGO and sought clarification (the M104 image is probably OK as new data was added in May 2009) ....I figure you gotta play by the rules!

[h0ughy]

thats great that you got picked anyway - there were nearly 4000 entries i think, almost as many entries Phil Hart had at the mailin's

[jase]

Good luck Peter...and others who have entered.

Wouldn't worry about the rules! Looks too free form if you ask me and the fact you can't submit images already awarded or published in some form is ridiculous. Mean to say that the event organisers want you to solely take images for their competition? They need to get with the program! That's not going to happen. Didn't some guys enter images acquired from the Faulkes 2m class telescope last year? Seems a bit of a joke. May consider entering next year if they get serious with the rules. Doesn't seem to be of the same calibre as the Sky and Telescope's Beautiful Universe competition.

[marc4darkskies]

Woo hoo!! Two of mine shortlisted too:

Dreamtime Billabong - NGC 6559
http://www.pbase.com/gailmarc/image/126063511/large

The Sword and the Rose - (Orion's Sword)
http://www.pbase.com/gailmarc/image/121582105/large

Aussie Aussie Aussie..... Oi Oi Oi!!!:)

Cheers, Marcus

[Peter Ward]

Way to go Marcus! Well done
:thumbsup:

[Esseth]

That's awesome, well done guys.

[Jeffkop]

Well I wouldnt be able to pick a winner out of those 4 let alone the rest of them up for consideration ... Good Luck you guys.

[h0ughy]

well done Marcus.

[spearo]

Jeff's right!
I don't envy the judges.
well done guys
frank

[strongmanmike]

All I can say Peter is that if ROG allow either of these images the competition rules are a complete farce...or maybe you have told them little white lies ;).

Mike

[Peter Ward]

My lastest version of M014 has data from 2008 and 2009 in it...and I have told the RGO this. The Solar image was captured in 2006, and reprocessed in '09 when I got my my current Quad core XP64 machine (L/R decon was just too slow on my earlier machine). Told the RGO team that too.

I don't see how I can be more open than that....but I suspect the solar image (the better of the two IMHO) will be disallowed.

[strongmanmike]

That question has already been answered by ROG on the APOTY forum at flickr:

Rob Hodgkinson asked ROG:

"Hello.
Regarding images older than 2 years.
What about new images that use some data older than 2 years?
I keep all of my data and am now producing images combining data from 3 scopes and cameras taken over a long period of time. The finished images themselves are new, but some of the data used in them is old."

ROG's answer:

"Ok, I've got an answer for you Rob. In order to be completely fair we need to ask that data also complies with the no older that two years rule. Otherwise it would be very difficult to draw the line on what constituted a 'new' image. I hope you understand."

Nat
Royal Observatory Greenwich

[Jen]

:clap::clap::clap: good luck guys :D

[Peter Ward]

Mike,



I understand where you are coming from, but if I were to do a 9 year cycle of Saturn's

ring plane with the first image in the sequence being '01 do you think the RGO judges would seriously disallow the entry? (I which case I'd be calling the contest a farce)



The M104 image in RGO has 3 seasons worth of data in it (I was never really happy with some low level banding, and is not the same data set that won in DM '08 (I think it's a little better)




As for the Solar image...hey, I told them it was taken in 06 and using that data and some fancy new L/R software made a better version of the image in 09....I knew I was pushing the boundaries with that one...but hey, why not?





The RGO judging team had been informed of the above. I'm sure that if the judges are made unhappy the images won't go any further than the shortlist.

[strongmanmike]

:rolleyes: what ever....