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Thanks for your comments Mike.
First of all I'd like to set the record straight. I'm not advocating reasons why people shouldn't enter CWAS, I'm giving an account why I'm not entering the competition (or why I don't submit images to astronomy magazines for that matter).
You may have noticed that most of the stuff I publish (the last couple of images being the exception) are of objects off the beaten track. My objective is to give people an opportunity for viewing objects that are either beyond their geographical range or as an imaging alternative to the dozen or so common objects.
It's for this reason I put much more emphasis on the raw data quality than processing. I believe anyone interested in seeing my images deserves a faithful reproduction of the object through a telescope of modest aperture. As I mentioned in a previous post I'm not interested in producing wow images that look as if they were taken with a 4 metre telescope.
As CWAS implies, it is a competition. To be competitive I'd have to go against my instincts and put more emphasis on processing with mega long exposures to produce an aesthetically pleasing image. How much reality gets thrown out in the process is the question.
Don't get me wrong I have great admiration for astroimagers that are prepared to invest long hours in exposure times and processing using the best equipment available. And good luck to anyone entering the competition.
Regards
Steven
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