A Monthly DSO challenge?

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

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!

[bert (Brett)]

Brendan,

The point of this thread and RB and Mikes input is to make it a LEARNING experience, not a competition. You say is that a competition is the only way to get support for it, well I have to disagree with that. There are plenty of competitions out there, what is being suggested here is quite different.

The spirit in which this whole thread is to compare what others are doing and hopefully learning what gear, processing works well, in a not threatening atmosphere.

Thanks for the your input though

Brett

[DavidTrap (David)]

Thanks for the input Mike,

If the Monthly Observing Challenge is providing a suitable list of objects, it could be a worthwhile source of objects.

DT

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

My reasons for not advocating a competition is that it won't be inclusive. By that, those who feel their work doesn't cut the mustard just won't submit their pics. The idea is to encourage folks to come out of the woodwork in a noncritical enviroment. The current imaging forums certainly donot contain the 'cheap and cheerful' pics mentioned early on in the thread. It is by including these in a nonthreatening, non intimidating way that the spirit of the challenge should be held. Otherwise, as the Iceman mentioned, the 'competition' will die quickly.

Maintaining two or three threads according to cost as a division will be very difficult to maintain. I've changed my mind on this matter since it would be lumped on very few members to conduct this challenge. The idea of a challenge by-no-means does it preclude those who want to show their thourghly tricked up rigs and software skills. But run a competition, and they are all you will see, with nil net gain for those who are starting out or have moderate skills

All entries should be seen in the same thread. All entries should show the technical gear/data involved. Everyone should be welcomed to participate without fear or favour. At most a second thread run concurrently for comments/critique.

Though only running for maybe six months, the obs. challenge has its following. One of the most enthusiastic contributors uses a 114 scope. I only wish I was able to contribute as much, especially with my 17.5", but I revel in the detailed descriptions he posts. If you make this obs challenge a contest, where would he stand? Do you see were I'm coming from? The way I see it, the more people participate, the more everyone gains, old dogs and new.

Start a peeing contest, and soon no one joins in.

Edit: Why not make the imaging challenge follow the obs. challenge, as David suggests. It contains targets from easy to difficult.

[Octane (Humayun)]

I have to admit, Brendan has a really good point about what happens in the deep space forum -- that, when an object is culminating, everyone's going at it. Just look at the recent spate of M20s for example. And, this has happened since forever. In a way, just scoping the deep space forum, you can see people with varying gear, varying degrees of skill imaging the same object.

A monthly DSO challenge might just end up doubling up on this.

I'm not saying to can the idea -- I understand there's a heap of new people to the hobby who are trying their hand at imaging that don't post to the deep space forum and this would give them a chance to share in the fun.

H

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

The DSO section is 100% exactly what your doing
Nobody is discouraged from posting!
Everybody generally puts there equipment on display
Everybody generally tells pretty much the exposure times
Everybody generally critiques each other.
Everybody generally helps the others to get going.

what are you doing different to "bring the people out of the woodworks"

its a double thread cheif.

Its not a pissing contest, because you'll all be working in the same class of people.

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Yeah, double-threads don't work, Brendan. I agree.

I just end by saying what I had previously, a challenge is only to focus peoples attention to a common point and see what different results come up. It is then upto each individual to what point they want to take it. Really, that is all. The competition is then upto you. I just don't like a 'pick my fav'. It hurts. If you then think 'tough', you are missing the point.

I'll try to contain my language next time, my apology, Brendan.

[mldee (Mike)]

My my, the thread is sure getting lots of great feedback. I'd just like to clarify further my reason for stepping back from what I started!

I initially asked for comments (because I had no idea of other peoples' ideas or similar previous attempts at this subject). As the feedback came in, it became very obvious that the "open challenge" concept was what most were looking for.

This was a major divergence from my initial poorly-expressed ideas, and showed that my concept of a pure "cheap and cheerful imaging info/challenge thread" was not in line with most member's wishes. I admit the C&C-only approach is not very democratic, but to keep the overhead simple, it became obvious to me it was the best approach to start with. Most disagree. So be it.

I also feel it would be unwise to attempt two "competing" but similar challenges, so I'm happy to step back and see how the mainstream approach goes.

This being the case, I simply found that I had little interest in the mainstream challenge concept, and so decided to step back from the discussion, as there appears to be plenty of others willing to continue it to whatever logical conclusion is reached.

I would again like to thank all members who have contributed to the discussion so far, in the process greatly enhancing my understanding of the various complexities involved in setting such things up.

I hope this clarifies my actions sufficiently, and I wish all the best to the various members also interested in starting a general monthly DSO challenge. I shall continue lurking on the sidelines, giving my support to IIS and it's forums.

Cheers,

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Brett, i just saw your post it got gobbled up quickly with the amount of replys.

Yes you are indeed correct about the focus of this forum.

"IceInSpace is a community website dedicated to promoting amateur astronomy in the southern hemisphere - including Australia, New Zealand, South America, Southern Africa and parts of Asia. We aim to help stargazers from around the world discover, discuss and enjoy the beauty of our night sky."

How do people learn? is it by their own curiosity? is it by others spurring them on? or do they just? learn?

How many times have you sat there and gone, man, i honestly am having a CBF day? How many times have you said hey, ill learn it one day, but ill just plod along for now?

The idea of a contest, isn't to see whos is bigger, what it does in my eyes is give you that silent nudge to go hey.... if i want to have a better image than person X then ill follow what hes doing (and lots of people do it already) but when you match person X, what then? you aim again how do you think the likes of Jason(jase), Ken Crawford, Paul Hease ect ect become so good at what they do? they all would have started from grass roots at one stage! as their skill progressed, so did their equipment and now, its almost like the miners touch!

What a competition would induce is a chance for everybodys person X to be marked, and then they contact that person and see if they can help. Presently im helping 5 different people who have named me their person X, if they where in perth, i would be right there helping them along. and as i offer to everybody and anybody ask me if you want some help.

This competition would be as much about gaining knowledge by example as anything would be, as a cherry to "bring people out of the wood works" because theres something at the end you get your name up in the spotlight for doing a unreal job with your skill and equipment as voted by your peers. Peer critiquing! the best thing going i think.

If theres something to win, i think the saying is You gotta be in it to win it so why not enter it with the best you have... theres your woodwork bringer outera hoosie jackie. and at the same time you have everybody learning from each other in their class, the beginners dream and look in on the pro's and the pros look in on the beginners and lend their voice. simple equation, induce more buzz, induce more awareness.

[bert (Brett)]

I would not be able to put as elegantly as mike did so here was he said;

From my experience, the best way to run this new DSO challenge, is:
- No restrictions on who can post an image
- No restrictions on value of the gear used
- No voting for the 'best'. It's a "challenge", not a competition.
- Contributors should post as much information as possible about the gear used/processing used, so that others can learn from it.

You'll get to see the same object from many different types of gear, focal length, cameras, conditions, and of course the skill of the imager and the processing used.

The aim of it initially was simply to give the imaging/observing a purpose - to get people out there focusing on a target.

So ideally you'd want people to capture the target during that month, rather than just post an image they took previously. But I don't think there should be any hard and fast rule about that. It's just for fun, after all.

Brendan its seems we are shooting for the same goals but in a different way. I have a group of astro friends of varying astro experience, some are teaching me and I am teaching others (or automating their observatories!), and it works very well getting the experience from other imagers and it sound like you have the same thing going on in perth, and good on you for helping others!

A challenge would end up with a Mike, Peter and Jase shootout (no offense intended to these guys, they arguably are the best regular aussie iis imagers), and everyone else would not be bothered posting due to how ordinary there images are incomparison, especailly if they are using top end gear and need to get some experience how to get the best out of their gear.

In the Trapp model, I feel it would be far less confronting.

Brett

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

everybody must of missed the key point i stated.

3 different levels.

you go though a online form, enter your equipment
you get your level

Professional amature
Intermediate amature
Beginner amature

that way your only shooting against your own level.
Im with you 100% about if its a all in brawl, it will be a handfull of dudes that always win. boaring... but with it being dynamic as the best people start swiming with their own sized fish... it gets interesting and the results will speak. the people who are keen and want to improve, they will improve. those who want to just plod will just plod. Its the same all over the world.

Get with the top 5 for 3 or 5 times within a cirtain amount of image posts/ time and your booted out and upto the next level.

Drag racing is exactly the same, and the competition is feirce, not im going to set the mafia to kill you feirce, but everybody is in there tweaking this and that to get that edge, people talk to each other people to learn, i used to be into this hobbie before i started uni. ANDRA have class's so your bog stock holden running mid 15's isn't against a 1500hp funny car... but as soon as you break a time level you are instantly told to go to the next class, if you move to a class that requires roll cages, ect ect, you cannot race untill you have the modifications, and once you go into Super Street class you have to get a licence, essentially thats what happens nowdays in this forum, everybody whos just starting out wont post because of this fact. One of the guys i help reglarly was putting himself down because hes like your image is so much better than mine so i wont post it. and you know what for the exp times hes captured bucket loads, so i taught him how to process to bring out those details. Somebody else said that their dream was to take images of star clusters. but wouldn't attempt it because they didn't know enough.... my response was just shoot the bloody thing! figure out the bits to figure when you get there!

If your crafty, you should be able to almost automate the 3 sites... and have a Mod just to make sure everybody is playing fair no different to the rest of the threads! and if the mod gets sick of it, somebody else can take over with no impact on the competition.

having no competition means we have another DSO images thread for my reasons stated earlier.

Everything your saying this thread will fix is already in place and from the examples listed above show that it doesn't work because people are still hiding their efforts.

This could be something else that nails IIS on the map. not only do we have one of the biggest knowledge bases, not only are we one hell of a active bunch, but we also have active competitions, that you have to be a member for.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Mike
thanks very much for starting this discussion.

My perspective is that I just want a forum where I can feel comfortable posting less than perfect images from cheap and cheerful equipment. My interest is in pushing this sort of gear to find out what is possible, since the potential is quite amazing. If such a forum had already existed, it could probably have saved me some time in working out that my GSO focuser is not up to scratch, that the filter on my QHY8 will stuff up if I image Alnitak etc. etc.

Such a forum would be best if the same targets were used by all, so a challenge makes sense to me, but I dont personally have any interest in a contest - I dont care in the slightest who wins or loses - in this hobby we all win big time.

regards Ray

[mldee (Mike)]

Thanks for your comments Ray. As mentioned previously, my objective was more towards making a fun and easy to use learning asset for the cheap and cheerful crowd, although I don't think I expressed it well.

My objectives would be:

Easy comparison of imaging a nominated DSO and the factors involved in each image

Getting comfortable with the various techniques needed to make good images of the various types of DSO's

Learning the short cuts and waste of times when it comes to acquiring an effective imaging setup (bang for the buck), all related to low cost. To me, low cost means under $5K for a good basic imaging setup (Scope, mount, imager and optical-train accessories including guider).

The intent being to show what can and cannot be done with various C&C items, and to promote DIY solutions wherever practical, and also what can be achieved with used items. Why? Because you can!

There are a lot of folks who are students, or who probably could better use their money on their family expenses. A focus on how to optimise enjoyment of the hobby for them pretty well sums it up. I believe there is a lack of easy to use information and learning forums, not only on IIS, for new imagers.

Let's hope such a forum eventually emerges here on IIS.


Cheers,

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Im at a loss here, everything you are wanting is already there
everybody feels as if they shouldn't post because they see the likes of Peter ward, Jase, Paul ect ect i think thats silly, because if you go though that thread, there beginners posting, and getting awesome feedback.

Same for the astrophotography link in the beginners section that was specifically put there only a few months ago because mike saw the need.

Taken directly from the description under the Astrophotography thread...

"For all beginners images, discussions and questions about astrophotography - post your photos, get feedback, how to get into astrophotography, what equipment do you need to take photos, etc."

you guys are asking for what is already there, its just that you don't realise it yet.

[michaellxv (Michael)]

Guys, guys, guys and gals,

I've refrained from commenting on this as I don't have any equipment to take DSO images, but you seem to be going in circles.

To those who haven't posted an image, just post them. You can only learn from the experience. I have (in the Solar system section) and no one has bagged by images, i've even had some encouraging comments. So they're not that great but I can only improve by practicing and my aim is that each one I post is better than the last.

If you want to learn ask for comments. Ask questions from the experts. I have had questions answered from guys whos work is recognised globally. Where else can you get that? That is what makes IIS so great.

Whether it's a challenge or a competition you need to spur you on nominate an object and see what happens. You can tweak the rules month by month as you go.

And remember to have fun.

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Originally Posted by michaellxv

Whether it's a challenge or a competition you need to spur you on nominate an object and see what happens. You can tweak the rules month by month as you go.

And remember to have fun.

The Obs. Challenge, I keep harping on about, is fluid in this way. No one owns the thread. Some months the theme is open to various objects. Other times focuses on a particular theme, like this month looks like it is globular clusters. The object selection is determined by a selection process, other times by an individual. The important thing is that it happens.

I don't see why an imaging line of monthly threads wouldn't be as fluid. One month, a 'rip your guts out' competition, another a 'C & C', another object centred. It could help keep it fresh and appeal to the various interests of IIS members. Just as our lives vary our abilities to indulge in this hobby, I'm seeing a fluid imaging thread to focus the communities attention might be a model to follow.

The current imaging forums, though open, can do with a community focus. It is just to deliver a seasonal theme as our Blue Planet does its thing. The 'visual and observational' forum has a sub-forum, that for observational reports. It might be another option for a model, with this competition/challenge thing can be opened in. It leaves the current imaging forum for its purpose, and then a sub-forum is for a community focus theme. Like I said, it can and should be a fluid beast.

A hybrid model is likely to be the most obvious model of a challenge/competition. Compromise, boys and girls, compromise.

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

i give up... like I said everything you want is already there your basically asking for a sheep in wolfs clothing. Unless something changes im not going to bother any more with this thread good luck duking it out.

[MrB (Simon)]

Brendan, using your logic... the terrestrial Photo Challenge is a waste of time too, since a forum already exists for people to start their own threads, post their terrestrial photo's and get feedback.
Yet the Photo Challenge persists and is quite popular, most months.
Sure there are some differences between the two challenges discussed here, and the motivations behind them, but they are fundamentally the same.

[DavidTrap (David)]

After Mike (mldee)'s posts stating he is not interested in pursuing this concept, I have contacted the moderators with a proposal. I have had positive feedback from one and am awaiting a reply from the "Big Kahuna".

I hope to get the go-ahead for a simple plan initially. If there is ongoing support from the members, I am sure the concept could be reviewed regularly and evolve over time.

Regards
DavidT

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Originally Posted by MrB

Brendan, using your logic... the terrestrial Photo Challenge is a waste of time too, since a forum already exists for people to start their own threads, post their terrestrial photo's and get feedback.
Yet the Photo Challenge persists and is quite popular, most months.
Sure there are some differences between the two challenges discussed here, and the motivations behind them, but they are fundamentally the same.

It's really not about who is better in my opinion it is a fun way to improve I use the Terrestrial Photo Challenge as Motivation to improve and think outside the box winning is not my motivation stepping up another level is I think this could be the same with a DSO challenge and if and when I get the equiptment to participate I will.