I find with all the images that get posted, it would be very difficult to acknowledge every one with an individual reply, even if it were to be as simple as writing “great image xxxxx”.
Speaking quite generally, I often find that when the season opens on a new object, the people who are 1st off the mark and post their image(s) first tend to get several comments, but when a flurry of other posts subsequently appear with the same image as more ‘scopes are pointed at the target, the responses tend to die down? This seems quite natural.
I personally try to look at most images and I really do appreciate them; not only what they reveal to me about the object but also about the craft and equipment of the person who took them. Sadly, I don’t have the time to reply to everything I look at, but I really do appreciate those images.
I personally find that the overall experience of setting up the gear, configuring it for the object, acquiring the object and processing it is almost the whole story for me. Whilst I really do enjoy the glowing feeling from a nice pat on the back from a post of mine, a nil response is not taken personally as I figure I’m just not important enough for people to deliberately not respond to.
In the early days of Ice In Space there were several people who really helped me along my journey in astronomy and then there are those IIS’ers who I meet at say, the Qld Astrofest and so I naturally tend to gravitate towards their posts and their images. I see this as a simple human or social reality, not a reflection on the importance or the quality of the contributions of those with whom I have had little interaction with.
Cheers
Dennis
