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Old 12-07-2019, 02:20 PM
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Peter Ward
Galaxy hitchhiking guide

Peter Ward is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: The Shire
Posts: 8,090
Quote:
Originally Posted by andyc View Post
Well done to all the finalists, good luck in the competition! I must admit, I doubt I'll waste my time with the Malin Awards anymore. Taking absolutely nothing away from the really high standard of entries, it's painfully obvious that for Solar System objects, David has very narrow tastes. He is only interested in "Colours of the Moon" or "Narrowband Sun" shots, and if you're lucky, a few eclipses (look at the archives too, it's remarkable!). While they're nice, I find it hard to believe in 2019 that there aren't great planetary images being submitted from the good number of excellent imagers here and elsewhere. 2018 was the best year in all our lifetimes for combined altitude and closeness of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, yet nobody matched two extremely similar Moon shots from Eddie, or a widefield Earth shot?? And hardly any planets have been finalists in the past decade?

It's David's competition of course, and he's an absolute legend for deep sky imaging and a really lovely guy, but the DMA is not the place to submit your planetary pics! [and yes, full disclosure - I did submit a couple, so i know it sounds like sour grapes... but based on the archive, you could accurately predict the shortlisted image types before they came out]. Its a weakness of a competition with a single judge.

I hope Phil takes out the Solar System prize though - gorgeous corona shot!
I hear what you are saying. I have mixed feelings about the "nightscape" section...which begs the question is this a landscape competition? or astrophotography? Many of these images are stunningly beautiful, and can tick both boxes...but sometimes DM's choices have me scratching my head.

But, the CWAS/Malins are not alone here. Royal Greenwich also heavily feature "Kodak moments" in their prize pool.

Sure, if it was my train set, I'd organise things a little differently. But, given it does provide a national showcase for some pretty amazing images, the CWAS/Mailns is unsurpassed (in Oz) by putting Astrphotography into the public eye.
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