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wow...
As a Brit, who almost emigrated a few years back to Oz (my wife and I love your country so much...but family issues had to come first), I was just immensely proud and honoured to even be in the same shortlist as some of the amazing images at the event. Martin's image is being debated all over the world, my take on it, having seen it first hand in print, and 8ft high on the roof of the planetarium at the RGO on the award night, is that it;s a staggering piece of work, which shows immense technical skill and great attention to detail.
I have been first hand at Mt Palomar in the control room of the Hale scope, and had images to work on taken with that monster. Martin's image, for an amateur setup (okay so a v good one!) is truly as good as what most pro observatories could have taken up to only a decade or so ago..
I hope some of you managed to come over to our shores (bring your weather with you please!), to see it all first hand, and all I can say again is huge congratulations to Martin and all the other Aussies, Brits, Americans etc, who managed to get to the final/images published.
I write for a UK Astronomy Magazine, and my pics are published in mags all the time, as are a huge proportion of the 500 images submitted...frankly I don't care...I talked to the judges (who blind reviewed each image with no names known), 6 of whom I know personally, and the only things I suggested for next year is to completely forbid any images taken with robotic pro scopes (I have access to FT and a few others, and no way would I submit images from them, it's not fair), and also no way allow any submissions of doctored Hubble data (it was done!)
Anyway... well done Martin et al...keep em coming, keep inspiring me and everyone else...and rol on 2010
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