"Rule 4" - 2008 Astro Imaging competition at SPSP - part 1

[Greg Priestley]

Let me get one thing off my chest first. If someone had a problem with Rule 4 - then why the hell didn't you contact me in the first instance for clarification? I had two people contact me after the posting of the rules, of which one was about Rule 4 and what it actually meant. But no one who entered into the thread bothered to go to the source.

Surely that's a better way of getting to what the rule is about then the raft of speculation, factually incorrect and slanderous comments that have since been made in the forums which only leads to confusion all round. Congratulations.

I fully expect and respect that some people will not agree with the terms and conditions of the competition. There is nothing I can do about this as YOU CAN'T PLEASE EVERYONE ALL THE TIME. If nothing was changed then people would have been upset, if it was changed differently then a different group would be upset.

There is no set of rules which everyone would be universally happy with. Instead I stive for a balance that is fair and inclusive as possible.

Having said that, let's look at a bit of background and my rationale for the change.

Apparently there was an astro imaging competition being run in conjunction with the SPSP for some years, but I only became active in astronomy in 2004 and the first two competitions that I'm familiar with are those organised by Richard Jaworski in 2005 and 2006. Richard hung up the organising hat at that point (a decision I can now fully appreciate), and on the brink of the competition last year being cancelled because no one wanted to take on the organising role, I threw my hat into the ring but with some definitive ideas in
mind for change to, in my opinion, improve the competition.

I'm not really sure why the competition first started, but in my mind there was a number of good reasons to keep it going - the astro imaging section is (was? - I'm sure the occulation group would argue that one these days) the most active section of the ASNSW and I thought it would be pretty damning if we couldn't even manage to continue an established competition which was after all for the benefit of the section. It's also a bit of fun, it allows everyone to benchmark their work against others, it's good promotion for astro imaging and encourages people to get involved and it provides an
additional activity for those attending the SPSP. It also gives a pat on the back to entrants.

The competition in 2005 was equipment based with categories from memory of Film, Digital SLR's, webcams and CCD's. Based on feedback from that compeition, the subsequent year this was changed to an object based competition, with the five current categories established. I believe there were a number of reasons for the change - the disparity in the number of images entered into different categories, the difficulty of comparing images of different objects within categories, the demise of film and the like.
In 2006 Richard introduced some changes to the competition with respect to voting - an extremely complicated but ever more transparent cross judging process from a number of independent judges. But regardless of the fairness of the system, he'd still get complaints that judging was flawed.

When I took on organising last year's competition, trying to reduce the workload and logistical hassles was one of my focuses (yes I have a life and didn't want to spend weeks organising this thing).

A major area is that of voting - if you go down the independent voting path, you have to have quite a number of judges, ideally experienced astro imagers. Trying to get this number who are both attending the star party, and also not entering the competition - is a real challenge. So I introduced two changes - the first was that entrants themselves were involved in the voting process (with a number of other independent judges to help avoid deadlocks in voting) - so at the end of the day, if entrants didn't like the results then it was only themselves to blame!

I also introduced the "People's Choice" award where all the attendees of the SPSP got a vote. This was really an experiment - would their voting be consistent with the astro imagers themselves? The answer was yes - it turns out that when you have 300+ people vote, you get reliable results - and also avoid criticisms of fairness (300+ judges surely can't be all wrong). [This year the primary voting will be by attendees of the SPSP, with the entrants judging able to be used to break deadlocks in voting].

The other change was the abolition of prizes and the intoduction of "the Astros" trophies (hey I'm selfish - it's a major effort required to shake the trees of enough sponsors to see what prizes fall out, plus I think it goes against the spirit of the competition of being recognised by your peers).

From most feedback that was received by the ASNSW SPSP committee and on forwarded to me, as well as those who contacted /discussed with me directly, the changes were well accepted and thought to be a positive step forward.

The big controversy was relating to the winning images of Mike Sidonio. Let me take this opportunity of set the facts correct here because a lot of people who attended the SPSP have a misunderstanding that all of his images were from mixed data.

Mike entered six images - three in Nebula and three in Galaxies. Two of the Nebula images included RGB data taken by Wolfgang Promper (Mike captured the Ha data in the images which was the majority of the image capture time) and was used with Wolfgang's permission and was fully disclosed on his entry form. Mike also got up and acknowledged this during his acceptance speech when his "Eye of God" image was awarded the best image by the astro imagers. Mike also was runner up in this category with his "Pillars of Creation" - an image entirely from his own data. Mike also took out the "People's Choice" award, but this time with a shot of the M83 galaxy, again an image entirely from his own data.

The conditions of entry were sufficiently vague as not to prohibit the use of external data, and given that Mike had disclosed it in his entry form then I didn't have a major problem with it (I'll admit I didn't actual notice this on the entry form until after the images had been posted and voting had opened - which makes it even harder to then reconsider the issue).

Even had these images not been accepted, Mike still would have won the Nebula category with "Pillars of Creation" which was entirely his own work, as well as the Galaxies and the People's Choice (also his own work), although from memory the places for second might have changed (I don't particular want to go back and reanalyse the results).

But based on all of the feedback from last year, I felt that this situation should not be allowed to re-occur and therefore drafted a new condition.

<see part 2>

[Greg Priestley]

<part 2 - read part 1 first>

You need to take the rule in context of the wider competition. There were only 14 entrants and 72 images last year and this needs to grow for this competition to remain interesting / viable. As such I'd like to have this as inclusive as possible for entrants and I don't want to artificially limit who can enter based on advances in new technology not being recognised.

Also, I want to try and avoid things get legalistic - the last thing we need is a 20 page entry form with prescriptive rules that only a lawyer can understand - in such a situtation no one will enter - no one will want to run the competition (especially me), and we will have missed the entire point. You have to remember that this isn't a 100m Olympic race - people aren't competiting at the same time at the same place, with the same equipment, taking the same object. There are going to be discrepancies between images / imaging equipment / imaging skills and the like. And it's impossible to normalise for every variation.

Just for clarity, this is the rule as is stands for 2008:
"4. All images must be the sole work of the entrant. The acquisition equipment must have been under their exclusive control of the
entrant at the time the image data was acquired, with all subsequent processing undertaken by the entrant. The inclusion of data
obtained from other imagers or public sources is prohibited."

It's designed to prevent last years situation but not prohibit new technology.

I don't want this competition to be legalistic in nature. If we took a literal reading of the first sentence, then it could be argued that no one could ever possibly enter as it's not the sole work of the entrant - they didn't make the digger that mined the sand that made the glass that was ground into lenses that was incorporated into the telescope that was installed on a mount which had a "camera" attached designed by someone in Japan, and fabricated in China and Malaysia and assembled in Indonesia and combined with software written in the USA, etc, etc.

So hence a more common sense approach applies (same applies to the rule of amateur astro imager - just because you received $20 for having an image published on SPACE.COM doesn't make you a professional).

I think the last sentence is also relatively unambigous - you can't combine data obtained from someone else (eg specifically banning last years scenario in which Mike Sidonio would not be able to include any data from Wolfgang Pomper) or from a public source. With respect to public sources I mean the publically accessible libraries of FITs and other source data files that are available - I don't want someone to take a shot of an object, and then combine it with data available from the Hubble archives for instance.

So it's the open wording of the second paragraph which has people concerned - "The acquisition equipment must have been under their
exclusive control of the entrant at the time the image data was acquired, with all subsequent processing undertaken by the entrant."

There are various shades of grey and to illustrate this, let me use the following FICTIOUS scenario (I only wish I had half of this sort of setup). Ask yourself, can I enter the competition in each of these examples?

• I purchase a telescope and put it on a fixed mount with a camera. Can I enter? Y/N
• I put it on an undriven equitorial mount and do manual tracking. Can I enter? Y/N
• I add a drive to the equitorial mount. Can I enter? Y/N
• I have a computerised mount. Can I enter? Y/N
• I setup periodic error correction on my computerised mount. Can I enter? Y/N
• I add a guide scope to my mount and use software to adjust tracking errors. Can I enter? Y/N
• To prevent wind, I install the mount inside an observatory dome. Can I enter? Y/N
• I suffer from light polution and move my equipment to a dark sky sight. Can I enter? Y/N
• The equipment is installed at the weekender out bush. Can I enter? Y/N
• To improve focus of my images, I install an electric focuser. Can I enter? Y/N
• I connect my computer for control of the electric focuser. Can I enter? Y/N
• I install software on my computer to automatically focus the image. Can I enter? Y/N
• I use a Canon 40D camera. I press physically press the camera button. Can I enter? Y/N
• To reduce vibrations, I use mirror lock up. Can I enter? Y/N
• But that doesn't resolve the problem, so I purchase a remote shutter release switch. Can I enter? Y/N
• I buy the top of the line model remote shutter release, which has timer functionality where you can set delay the start of capture, control the number of shots taken, as well as the exposure time. Can I enter? Y/N
• Instead of this, I connect it to my computer and use software to activate the shutter. Can I enter? Y/N
• I now have everything fully under computer control. Can I enter? Y/N
• My arthritis plays up when sitting out in the cold. I get long extension leads for my keyboard, mouse and monitor and can image from inside the house. Can I enter? Y/N
• Physical cables are too expensive for that lenght of run, but I can take over the computer via a wireless network for $100. Can I enter? Y/N
• With the observatory connected to the internet connection at the weekender in the bush, and with an internet connection at home, I can now take over the telescope from my city house at night and remotely control it. Can I enter? Y/N
• I'm tired and going to bed early. I schedule the equipment to take the remaining shots and then shutdown. Can I enter? Y/N
• I find that I can programme in a night's observing run and the equipment will do everything automatically. Can I enter? Y/N
• I relocate the equipment to an ultra dark sky site. Can I enter? Y/N
• The ultra dark sky site is in New Mexico. Can I enter? Y/N
• I win lotto and buy the above make my dreams above a reality. Can I enter? Y/N
• Rather than winning lotto, I win $10,000 on the pokies at the local club. I can't afford to buy all of the equipment myself, but find a few other people who would like to share it. We buy it on a time share basis. Can I enter? Y/N
• I'm unlucky and never win anything - but I have a friend who owns this setup. I use it for a night. Can I enter? Y/N
• I buy my mate a case of beer as thanks. Can I enter? Y/N
• My mate doesn't drink beer but wants cash. Can I enter? Y/N
• Instead of it being a mate, it's a business who sells time on astronomical equipment. Can I enter? Y/N

--------------------------------------------------------

• Instead of taking over the equipment and having exclusive control over it, I instead pay a business to acquire a specific image. Can I enter? NO
• Instead of taking over the equipment and having exclusive control over it, I instead ask a friend to acquire a specific image. Can I enter? NO
• Instead of taking over the equipment and having exclusive control over it, I instead ask a friend for an image that they have already
• captured. Can I enter? NO

Obviously each of the above is just a small progression in technology or automation from the previous step. The question is where do you draw the line.

I will plead ignorance as to how the commercial scopes actually work. I saw a documentary which talked about the four brothers behind Bisque and they showed them installing a setup in New Mexico for a remote customer who took over the computer remotely via the internet and this is my understanding of how some of these systems work. This is where the operator has exclusive control.

Others have said that some of the commerical rentable scopes are more based on a request system where you enter the co-ordinates of the object and what you want done and this will be placed in an observing queue with the results emailed to you later. This latter in my mind is not permissable as the equipment is not under your exclusive control.

So up until the last three (before I drew the line), I don't have a problem with this in the context of the rule (and this is what I intended) - this is what is readily available today and each and every entrant would be using some combination of these various technologies and scenarios.

Maybe I should have just left the second sentence out - it doesn't change my intent or intepretation.

Remember that there is more to a winning image then the cost of the equipment it was acquired on. Life is not fair and someone will always have better equipment - but that's not the sole or even primary factor.

I just want to reiterate a few other changes to the rules and the reasons - you must provide details of the object, mount, scope and
camera on the image. Again this is based on feedback from last year where people didn't always know what they were looking at, nor could they judge the merit - what might be superb image taken on an ED80, might be an ordinary image taken with a 20" RC scope (remember that each of the individual attendees of the SPSP will determine the criteria important to them in judging the image they consider to be the best and some may well take into consideration the type and cost of equipment used).

The other one which I intend to enforce this year, imaage size is to be no bigger than A4 with no mounting boards, etc. This is for purely logistical reasons - the space on viewing boards is limited and whilst having a nice display and frame around your image makes it look really good, it disadvantages other entrants, and hence the move to restrict the size.

As I said earlier, I expect people may not agree with where I've drawn the line in the sand, but to me it's all a logical progression. Just because you have a different opinion where the line should be doesn't make the rules wrong or the competition rigged. I'm very open to feedback for 2009 - but if all you can say is "I don't like it" or "it's unfair" without offering specific solutions then don't expect me to place too much weighting on your feedback.

That's about all I've got to say at the moment.
Greg Priestley
Organiser, The Astro's 2008 - SPSP




(Next year I might change Rule 4 to read - the organiser is always right - if in doubt read Rule 4).

[turbo_pascale (Rob)]

Greg,

This is a fantastic reply, and even though I wouldn't be entering in this comp anyway (not a member of ASNSW nor can I attend), you've completely justified (more than you have to in my opinion) your rules.

The automated telescope issue is just about spot on - most of these system you are in control of the system in every aspect. It is quite simple, but you need be be logged on and tell it what to do.

I think you've got it spot on, and seriously, no need to justify yourself! If anyone wants it to be different, they can nominate to do it next year!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

While not a part of "The Discussion" I must say

[xstream (John)]

Great reply Greg.

If nothing else it's more than a step in the right direction. No doubt it will need a bit of fine tuning but like Rob and Paul, I believe you've got it right.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Ooooh I'm infamous

Nice short explanation Greg ....but surely there isn't an Aussie who wouldn't accept beer for telescope time . Of course, Wolfgang just wanted a carton of cigarettes (he's a bloody chain smoker) but I refused to trade colour data for health issues, I just wouldn't do it, so I got the data for free.

See you at SPSP 2008 ...with my poster sized very slightly blurred Hubble + VLT mozaics with my fingerprints on them, mounted under glass in gold leaf frames

Mike
just joshin, your doin a great job, no complaints from me

[Kal (Andrew)]

Great reply Greg, and thumbs up for taking the reigns of organising the SPSP astro imaging comp

[h0ughy (David)]

Greg thank you for your frank and honest reply.

Yes it clears up a lot, and adds value to the effort "unseen".

This issue was not an attack against you personally, it was never that intent from me, I thought the changes you made last year were great. I was merely looking at the openess of the sources for the images. If this has been recieved as a personal attack on your character and reputation, then i apologise publically.

I hope that there are many sunny days and clear nights ahead.

[Dennis]

I think that either there are some very brave people within the Australian amateur astronomy community, or they are simply just plain foolhardy.

Who on earth would complain about Mike Sidonio winning a competition – I mean, just look at his name for Pete’s sake; strongmanmike.

Have you seen the muscles on the guy – lifting 200Kg gas cylinders that look more like the external fuel tanks from an F-111 and then running around a paddock with them? Sheesh!

I just hope he never finds out who you are.

Cheers

Dennis

[Kal (Andrew)]

Dennis, when Mikes poster sized very slightly blurred Hubble + VLT mozaics with my fingerprints on them, mounted under glass in gold leaf frames wins the Astro-imaging comp, you can be the one to tell him he is disqualified

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by Kal

Dennis, when Mikes poster sized very slightly blurred Hubble + VLT mozaics with my fingerprints on them, mounted under glass in gold leaf frames wins the Astro-imaging comp, you can be the one to tell him he is disqualified

I'll do it as people must think I am on a suicide mission anyway - dead man walking. I can see the darts being thrown when my entry goes up.

[tornado33]

Actually in the DLSR category there cannot be any remote imaged entries, as I am not aware of any "rent a scope" businesses offering DSLR scopes for use online.

I have taken up the GRAS trial membership offer and have taken a few images on some of its scopes. To go really deep would take a considerable amount of money, eg I saw a lovely narrowband shot of Eta carina on the GRAS forums, that took 12 hours of imaging time. That would cost over $500 or thereabouts of scope time.

Perhaps next year could I suggest a separate category of remote imaged images. You see, it is not that difficult to use the GRAS system. The owners have gone to a lot of trouble to make it as user friendly as possible. Their scopes are all autofocus and use platesolve to point exactly at whatever the user specifies. They maintain an extensive library of darks, flats and bias frames for the users to use in processing their images (and work well, ive used them).

once youve chosen what scope to use, you just put in the co ords (or object name), put in the exposure, filters and binning in a simple menu display, then hit the aquire image button and let it go. It can log you off after the run is finished and images will soon be in their ftp site ready for download. They also have skype, allowing one to talk to someone if youre having probs.

in theory, a person who has never looked through, or touched a telescope ever, can watch the video tutorials and start taking images with GRAS in maybe 1/2 hour or so.

To be fair the real skill of the user happens after downloading the images. The processing. That is soley up to the user.

So its certainly an interesting issue. The rules this year are already set, but it might be worth considering wether to have remote imagery in a separate category. When I say remote, I mean using a telescope that you yourself never set up (some astronomers have their own scopes in a home observatory they can operate from the house, but they actually set it all up and so I dont include those)

Anyway I cannot enter anything, remote imaged or otherwise as Im not attending SPSP nor a member of ASNSW, but thought Id air my thoughts, thanks for reading
Scott

[skeltz (Rob)]

You own the equipment enjoy the time,
you rent it,s not in your real time,
sound fair??? ideas!!
houghy don,t worry mate it,s alright blame me!!
look its all about hands on at least thats what it should be about.
Remote imaging is great but knowledge of your equipment and harnessing that is what counts. the trials and tribulations are part of imaging the moments of our own creation, the embryo that gives birth to further creation and understanding and realization that ..that was ...cool!!!!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Dennis

I think that either there are some very brave people within the Australian amateur astronomy community, or they are simply just plain foolhardy.

Who on earth would complain about Mike Sidonio winning a competition – I mean, just look at his name for Pete’s sake; strongmanmike.

Have you seen the muscles on the guy – lifting 200Kg gas cylinders that look more like the external fuel tanks from an F-111 and then running around a paddock with them? Sheesh!

I just hope he never finds out who you are.

Cheers

Dennis

Ah Dennis you needn't worry I'm a shadow of my former self (down from 135kg to a waif like 120kg and as strong as a drinking straw) all I can lift these days are peoples spirits

Funnily enough I see astroimaging competitions very much like my strongman competitive days really. When I was competing I was often up against bigger scarier looking guys often on steroids and I used to say to myself just do your best Mike you have trained hard and with what you have been born with, if you don't win you have tried your best. My trick was to train smart within my drug free base, analyse each event from a sport and biomechanical aspect and plan my technique more carefully then practise practise, practise. This approach bagged me some big scalps and some respectable results (and even a win or two) in a sport rife with illegal drug use, it even allowed me to set a World Record in a strength event in 2001 completely drug free. So it is not all about winning it is about doing what you can and enjoying the challenge.

Of course the artistic eye necessary to complie a good astroimage isn't necessary in strength competitions and this "eye" for what looks good is a large factor in many award winning astro images IMO

Mike

[robgreaves]

There was an interesting discussion on this one last night at the ASNSW imaging section meeting, regarding remote (Global Rent-a-scope etc.) scope entries for the SPSP imaging competition.

The words 'in control of the scope' were mentioned more than once for remote imaging entries, but of course quite often an imaging 'job request' is given to a remote scope to complete as and when a time slot is available, not to mention of course when the skies co-operate. Does clicking on a website page to tell a remote setup somewhere in the USA where it's 10am in the morning to image M42 as and when it can really put the user 'in control of the scope?'. I didn't think so...

In exactly the same vain, perhaps I could go big game shark fishing... from my armchair!! Give a shark fisherman a call, tell him to go to sea as and when he can, catch me a shark, bring it back, FedEx it over to me then I would mount it on a board and photograph it to send to the Big Sharks Monthly fishing mag. Might well win 'Catch of the Month' But did I really catch it? Of course I didn't.

My 0.02c worth are remote imaging opens up a whole grey area that only serves to completely un-level what should be a flat playing field.

A simple rule of 'take the image with equipment you own' could make the playing field completely flat again. No imaging gear? Tough. Can't enter. Life sucks hey?! But buy some kit and have a go next year

Even with 'subjective judging' that was discussed at the meeting supposedly taking into account the quipment used, images taken using the Hawaiian Foulkes Telescope will always exceed the capabilities of my mere $45k imaging rig, and visual impact is (or at least should be) what wins an imaging competition.

On principle, I won't be fielding an entry to the competition - it's a lot of effort to go to, to pack my truck to a checklist to lug all my kit a few hundred km inland to a dark sky site, set up, balance the rig in all axes, put all the wiring together, meticulously polar align, focus, frame the shot, focus again, autoguide, run the exposures, create darks, wait for dawn and create a good set of flats etc. only to be beaten in the competition by an armchair astronomer with remote access to someone elses superior kit who has to do none of the above effort except collect an email with the .fits data from his email inbox and process it.

I'm not trying to create any enemies here, I'm just looking at this pragmatically. I'd be interested to hear if others can't see my point.

Regards,
Rob.

[PhotonCollector (Paul)]

Originally Posted by robgreaves

On principle, I won't be fielding an entry to the competition - it's a lot of effort to go to, to pack my truck to a checklist to lug all my kit a few hundred km inland to a dark sky site, set up, balance the rig in all axes, put all the wiring together, meticulously polar align, focus, frame the shot, focus again, autoguide, run the exposures, create darks, wait for dawn and create a good set of flats etc. only to be beaten in the competition by an armchair astronomer with remote access to someone elses superior kit who has to do none of the above effort except collect an email with the .fits data from his email inbox and process it.

I'm not trying to create any enemies here, I'm just looking at this pragmatically. I'd be interested to hear if others can't see my point.

Regards,
Rob.

Rob,

Well said Rob, precisely what I was going to say !
(well except for the bit about having to travel outback )

clear skies
Paul

[Greg Priestley]

There was an interesting discussion on this one last night at the ASNSW imaging section meeting, regarding remote (Global Rent-a-scope etc.) scope entries for the SPSP imaging competition.

The words 'in control of the scope' were mentioned more than once for remote imaging entries, but of course quite often an imaging 'job request' is given to a remote scope to complete as and when a time slot is available, not to mention of course when the skies co-operate. Does clicking on a website page to tell a remote setup somewhere in the USA where it's 10am in the morning to image M42 as and when it can really put the user 'in control of the scope?'. I didn't think so...

"I didn't think so" is implying that this is allowed. They are not and that was certainly what was discussed last night. Refer to my original posting.

In exactly the same vain, perhaps I could go big game shark fishing... from my armchair!! Give a shark fisherman a call, tell him to go to sea as and when he can, catch me a shark, bring it back, FedEx it over to me then I would mount it on a board and photograph it to send to the Big Sharks Monthly fishing mag. Might well win 'Catch of the Month' But did I really catch it? Of course I didn't.

But this is banned - again refer to my initial posting. You're probably stretching irrelevant analogies too far.

My 0.02c worth are remote imaging opens up a whole grey area that only serves to completely un-level what should be a flat playing field.

The playing field will never be truly level - down a few paragraphs you say how can you compete with your mere 45K rig - mine's 4K - how could I possibly compete with you then? That's unfair!

A simple rule of 'take the image with equipment you own' could make the playing field completely flat again. No imaging gear? Tough. Can't enter. Life sucks hey?! But buy some kit and have a go next year

Bull****. Sorry for the language but there is no other way to put it. Your saying if I OWN $200K of equipment compared to your mere $45K then that makes it level? And comparing that to someone who owns $4K of equipment, or $1K, is also fair?

I'll hold the mirror up on the second part of your comment and reflect that straight back at you. "Someone has access to better equipment. Tough. Life sucks hey?"

Even with 'subjective judging' that was discussed at the meeting supposedly taking into account the quipment used, images taken using the Hawaiian Foulkes Telescope will always exceed the capabilities of my mere $45k imaging rig, and visual impact is (or at least should be) what wins an imaging competition.

You're mangling what the process is (is your disinformation deliberate?). Just to stop further disinformation being spread, let me explain the process again. All attendees of the SPSP get to vote (this includes the entrants). This happened last year as well for what was called the "People's Choice" award and over 330 people voted. Last year this was done as a bit of an expirement to see whether they obtained consistent results compared to the astro imagers voting (which had a peer based system). This system is being expanded this year so it forms the primary voting pool (entrants will still vote, and these will form a secondary lot of votes that can be used to disambiguiate deadlock fairly).

Attendees of the SPSP can vote using any criteria they like. A lot of attendees last year made comments to me that they really wanted to see the details of the equipment used in order to be able to place some weightings on the images in their own mind (presumably to penalise the people on the super duper equipment which produces a similar result to someone working on more average equipment).

I can't tell you how and what people will take into consideration in forming their opinion, but this year they are being provided with the information relating to the equipment so they can factor this in if they so desire. This is not "subjective judging".

On principle, I won't be fielding an entry to the competition - it's a lot of effort to go to, to pack my truck to a checklist to lug all my kit a few hundred km inland to a dark sky site, set up, balance the rig in all axes, put all the wiring together, meticulously polar align, focus, frame the shot, focus again, autoguide, run the exposures, create darks, wait for dawn and create a good set of flats etc. only to be beaten in the competition by an armchair astronomer with remote access to someone elses superior kit who has to do none of the above effort except collect an email with the .fits data from his email inbox and process it.

I have to say I'm really disappointed to hear that you won't be fielding an entry. Let's see if I can summarise this differently - you're pulling out because the rules potentially allow someone to image on a better setup than you? I am not aware of anyone intending to do this - and there has been no one in this forum who has said that they are intending to do this, but because the rules allow for this you're taking your bat and ball and going home?

Why does everyone seem to think it only has to do with the equipment that determines the end result - it is a component of the final result, as is selecting the object, processing, displaying it, etc.

Thankfully some of the entrants from previous years didn't have this attitude of "I can't possibly win because someone has better equipment" - last year Joe Cauchi won Clusters using film on a home made scope! The year before the overall prize was won by Ken Charlwood with a moon mosaic taken with a point and shoot digital camera through the eyepiece again knocking off all of the more expensive equipment. How is that possible if your assumption that better equipment is the only factor is correct?

I posted my reasoning in the first post of the thread - why don't you go back and post your answers to each of the hypothetical questions I posed - and add new ones in if you think it helps clarify your position - and then email it to me at astroimagingcomp@asnsw.com (this offer is open to everyone) - I want it via email and not posted on this thread as I want to see what each individual person who's response actually is, not just jumping on the bandwagon of someone else without thinking it through and explaining why one thing is OK (own expensive equipment) and another is not (rent expensive equipment).

Note, the rules to 2008 competition will not get changed, but it will add feedback for 2009 (where we can then change the rules once again and have then have a different set of people disagree with them - but that will be somebody elses problem next year to deal with).

[robgreaves]

Far too many quotes and self-presumed assumptions there to reply to each of your points individually.

My thoughts can simply be summarised by the idea that if you own the gear and you set it up, great - take an image you really can call your own and enter it. Using a pre-set up rental system requires little to zero skill, and your astrophotography competition has suddenly just become a Photoshop contest

I'm not going to bemoan your rules and then enter the competition I'm a non-competitive amateur astronomer anyway, and have never entered any competitions before, and am not seeking any sort of astro fame, so I'm not going to suddenly start now!

I look forward to seeing the entries and results at the star party though. May the 'real' astro imagers amongst you reap your hard earned rewards. I'll certainly be casting my votes accordingly

Regards,
Rob.

[Greg Priestley]

Originally Posted by robgreaves

I'm a non-competitive amateur astronomer anyway, and have never entered any competitions before, and am not seeking any sort of astro fame, so I'm not going to suddenly start now!

I'm confused. You say you've never entered competitions, and yet you claimed "On principle, I won't be fielding an entry to the competition." implying because of the rule. If the rule was different would you have entered an entry? Or were you being disingenuous?

I look forward to seeing the entries and results at the star party though. May the 'real' astro imagers amongst you reap your hard earned rewards. I'll certainly be casting my votes accordingly.

Hmm... so the voting system works to equalise this all out anyway?


I still look forward to you sending me a private email with your answers to the hypothetical questions I posed.

Cheers
Greg

[robgreaves]

I was actually looking forward to entering, but that suddenly changed when I realised the competition is simply not on equal footing. I thought such an astrophotography competition would be an exhibition of skill in that equipment you own (REGARDLESS of cost) is set up and aligned using your skill, fine tuned performance wise using your skill, to compose using your skill, (auto)guide using your skill, and expose an image using your skill, which you then process using your skill.

If someone with a $4k rig sets up perfectly, tweaks things to get superb 0.1" tracking, has pinpoint focus, FWHM of less than 1, and finds the best and most transparent night of the year, and me with the $45k rig misses critical focus, has tracking issues, bad dark frames, poor calibration etc. etc., then the person with the $4k rig will win. And so they rightly should They used their SKILL to win, and I'd be the first to congratulate them.

I won a fishing competition once in the UK with rubbish fishing gear. However, those with quality gear costing 10 times more didn't moan - since I used my skill to win. They might have had something to moan about though if I'd paid omeone else to catch my fish for me... Sound familiar?

Using remote third party gear requires absolutely ZERO skill in the image capture process. The competition then just denegrates into a Photoshop contest, without question. Perhaps there should be a separate Processing competition; all competitors given the same data? They would save them a few hundred bucks too on scope rental for enough data for a decent image, which they could put towards buying their own kit.

I haven't got time to answer all your hypothetical questions, but the majority of answers are 'Y'. The 'N' results appear quite consistently once you are using remote equipment that belongs to someone else and is already set up for you, taking that large element of required skill away.

I'm not going to keep thrashing this one since as you said, the rules - wrong or not in whoever's view - appear to have already been decided.

Regards,
Rob.