[Peter Ward]

There is also a good deal of plain and simple plagiarism that goes on with images posted on the web.

Amazing how the object of interest has Hubble like details but the rest of the field is filled with low resolution blobs and the poster is too dim to realize their dodgy image is shouting out : "this is a fake"

One would hope if entered into a contest the judges would spot such clumsy efforts and cull them accordingly.

David Malin is a master at this, but even he admitted the "fakes" are getting better and more difficult to spot. He even suggested having a new category: best fake.

Rest assured if there is a dollar to be had, there will also be those who will cheat to get it.

I have yet to see any 80mm telescope, even with the best AI sharpening, out-resolve a 0.5 metre class instrument.

While there are no prohibitions to over processing, in a contest environment my hope is the judges will spot the difference without much fuss and consider works more deserving.