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All fair points, but from my ideas, alot of people who are new will not post because they see what people with other gear has and instantly equate really good gear with good images and feel as if they will be put down (its the way of life if your substandard generally you don't want to stand out and put the lights on you especially when the others in the group have hubble like shots and your has got oblong stars).
everybody should be included, which is the point of it but whats the point of having a sticky thread with this is this months DSO? just look at the DSO images that pop up, they do exactly what is being proposed here right now its a common consensus and unspoken and somebody who takes a interesting shot is generally copied. Its all in everybody showing what they are imaging, some are abstract and absolutely fab, some are wide field, some are narrow. you get my point.
I think that a DSO Challange should be that. split up into 2-3 groups, people with the really good gear and professionals really, people with average/mediocure gear/and beginners, this show cases what can be done with the equipment/skill of each individual group. Administrative overheads can be culled to an absolte minimum with some clever programming work. that is,
-Peer critiqued system, whos photo do you think was the best, the most votes gets a automatic email
-once awarded that person selects a target with some basic guide lines (revolving difficulty levels, type of target ect ect).
-Cost of equipment and skill level should be how your placed into the beginners/intermediate/advanced sections a quick form to select your equipment, that gets filtered and tells you where to post your image, that way you don't just get lobbed with Paramount ME's Remote obs and 20" RC telescopes... with a ED 80 + DSLR. but the next point makes sure that if your a professional with low end equipment you will produce better results (hence the skill factor is just as important as the equipment sometimes)
-Once you have placed top 5 photos then you automatically get sent a email pushing you into the next catagory.
As much as you don't want this to be a competition, theres no point to it if it isn't, why would you strive to submit better photos.? If it was me it wouldn't spur me on to be better if there wasn't a sense of competition. Im not looking for prizes or anything but i think as a prize for everybody that the top 12 images from each catagory could be made into the inagural IIS coffee table book? 12 images from 3 catagories...? that sounds like a winner to me.
Like i said, some crafty programming could see this as a mainstay, trying to get 1-5 people to run it will end up dead, people move on and do things. Get it hard programmed and then it doesn't matter whos at the helm, all they have to do is make sure its working!
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