| Is astrophotography a science, art or both? | |
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| Astrophotography is a science | |
| Astrophotography is an art | |
| Astrophotography is both a science and an art | |
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What we do here is wonderful, entertaining and inspirational. But I find it of some concern that so many think it is science. As a retired scientist, I love doing astrophotography and I am very happy to be part of the AB community. In a large part, this is because it so different from the necessary rigours of being part of a scientific discipline and community. I don't have to come up with hypothesis to test, rigorously collect data in an unbiased fashion, comprehensively reference or acknowledgement previous work [although here I do try] or provide images/raw data that are reproducible for others to confirm the legitimacy of my data collection and processing. [Heck, I can't even reproduce my own images from one post-processing to the next]. I could even name any new discoveries after myself, ignoring IAU convention. [Actually I wouldn't, and IAU convention is the most appropriate and useful anyway]. Thankfully, I don't make any these days, since I would have a hard job assessing their significance, since I had not chosen my fields in an unbiased fashion in the first place. AP still gives me a connection with the science of astronomy, through the use of images for science communication. But the images are only the medium. I rely on the science uncovered by professionals to tell the astronomy story behind the images. I don't think any audience is going to be riveted by my stories of post-processing, even if I do think the RCAstro tools are all kinds of wonderful. I also collect data from my weather station, does that give me the legitimacy to claim that I am doing climate science? The trouble is, when everyone is a scientist - no-one is. CS Brian |
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Brian Boyle: I don't think you should be concerned that I think it is science--and I do. As I said before, it may not be great science, and it may not have much value to professional scientists. It may not move human knowledge very much. But it's still science--by definition (which I painstakingly dissected above). When I pick up my guitar and play, it's music. When a two-year-old sings Mary Had a Little Lamb, it's music. Neither of those things is in the same league as Pablo Casals playing a cello concerto or Steve Morse ripping out a blistering solo line with Deep Purple. From painting to basketball, there are varying degrees of expertise, execution, and accomplishment. There's only one Tom Brady, but that doesn't mean the guy playing a pick-up game in a suburban field isn't playing football. Brian Boyle: Science communication is extremely important to, and part of, science. I would wager that the JWST wouldn't not be at L2 right now if not for the Hubble image of the Pillars. That single picture did more to advance the science of astronomy in the last 30 years than 100 papers published in science journals. It's the same reason there was a window on the Mercury spacecraft--from The Right Stuff: German Scientist #2: The press? What does the press have to say about this? We contribute to science in our way so that those who engage in the rigors of the scientific method have the resources to keep doing it. No, what we do isn't what professionals do. I haven't seen anyone claim it is. But to say it isn't science is an overreach, in my view. And it's not an unexpected one. When I was working on my master's degree in math, there was an overriding opinion in the math department that physics, chemistry, and especially biology were not real science because they utterly depend on observation and empirical evidence rather than pure logic. I thought that was silly then and continue to think that anything that smacks of that attitude is silly now. It's all a question of degree, I guess. |
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I completely agree with Brian. I enjoy the engineering aspects of my imaging systems but I tell my friends that the ultimate result of my interest in astro-imaging is "an art project". I've helped to discover just one object and I love producing nice images, but none of that has anything to do with science. I've observed that a lack of education in science has led to a society where there is a general lack of understanding about what science really is! Years ago, my kid's third grade teacher had her students building model houses as a part of their sciences curriculum and when I pointed out to her that that had nothing to do with science, her response was that teaching "real science" was to complicated for third graders. I hit the ceiling. I told her that that is exactly the right time to begin educating kids on how to think and how do science--and that conversation led us to remove our kids from that school. She clearly did not know what science is--and she was passing along her misunderstanding to her students. Science is not a belief; it is a process to understand the way things work. It requires a theory, a way to test the theory, and it can never prove a theory. Theories can be "strengthened" through measured data but they can only be disproven--never "proven". The key to a solid theory lies in the ability to test it using measurements or data analysis. Astronomers use data gathered from earth bound telescopes (and other equipment such as LIGO) and space craft to test theories about the way the universe works. Einstein created a new theory of gravity that was testable by making careful measurements of the apparent position of Mercury as it passed close to the sun--most easily done during a solar eclipse. A careful measurement using astro-imaging early in the last century provided the data needed to confirm the accuracy of Einstein's predictions. If you are using your equipment to reconfirm this measurement, that's science (even if you never publish your results.) If you are taking pictures of Mercury to hang on your wall, that's art. Some folks (mostly in the biological sciences) describe discovery as "science" and it can be; but to qualify, discovery should be coupled to a larger theoretical picture. @Marcel Drechsler has discovered a lot of new object using modest imaging equipment; however, he has also used those images as a part of scientific papers that explore various theories about existence of the objects that he has discovered. In my view, Marcel and his collaborators have created some extraordinary images that have also become part of larger studies--and that takes his activities beyond art into a scientific endeavor. Simply taking an image with a telescope (large or small) for your own satisfaction is challenging and rewarding on it's own; but it is most definitely not science. John |
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What is the difference between science and art? The common conception of science is that it is this giant completely objective activity whose truth is unquestionable. Not so, science requires curiosity, the ability to see things as they are or to see what everyone else can see yet think about it in a way that no one has ever thought before. Science requires skill, intuition, insight, persistence, logic yes, but most importantly imagination. Art requires the ability to see things as they are, especially in the visual arts, it requires the perception of positive and negative spaces, it requires skill, intuition, insight, persistence and determination to have the work match what is imagined, or more importantly, to attain a level of harmony that leads to a perception of astonishing beauty and proportion. Science, especially the “pure” variety, when it is well-done can also be perceived as beautiful, elegant, complete, yet always provisional, always the best understanding to date; susceptible to change if a better theory comes along. Science does have utility, especially of the predictive variety, but the best science appears first to be an expression of truth that transcends all utility. For example, one often hears talk about the elegance of mathematics. No computer, or artificial intelligence could perceive that elegance, it requires a human and artistic attitude to perceive it. If truth is the goal, art and science both share this as their objective, but with a different approach. I am reminded of Picasso’s statement that “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.” The truth of science is of the same variety, it is an art to do good science, it is not obvious, it requires creativity and persistence, no less than art, to conceive of relationships of cause and effect that nature will not yield without great effort. So, what about astrophotography? Well Dobson (for whom Dobsonian telescopes are named) disdained it, stating that one can easily find an existing photograph of any of the objects we shoot, so why bother? This is true, so why do we do it anyway? Well, why do musicians play the classics like Mozart or Chopin? Because each time these masterpieces are played, they are interpreted anew. And when an interpretation reveals some new aspect, or “truth” about the piece, we are enriched by a deeper understanding of the work. Art and science are both about the play of imagination, we are in essence the universe looking at itself, and finding delight in it. What a privilege it is to have a whole deep sky to see anew and play in, perhaps in a different light, every time we try to capture and share the essence of it. |
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The question in the title contains an implicit assumption. Which is false. Astrophotography is neither art, nor science. It's photography of the night sky. I would say that if we define it as something, it would be a technique. It can lead to artistic productions or images, that can qualify as art. It is by no means the default situation, though. And I would say it is quite hard to achieve an artistic rendition. That's why Gary Lopez created the group "Fine Art Astrophotography" and I remember him saying that one of his projects was to get astrophotography recognized as a potential fine art photography by the photographic community. Which means that this is not actually the case. Photography is not artistic per se, by definition. Photos of presidents united for the NATO summit is not art, it's journalism. Photos taken with the smartphone are not necessarily art. Photos of kids taken with the full frame high-end Canon or Nikon during holidays are not art. Even I put them on my desk or on my wall. If I am able to capture a particular angle, a dynamic expression, a bokeh effect and interesting lighting, yes, it can become artistic. The same applies for astrophotography. And it's even harder to obtain. We do not have lighting, shadows, "the golden hour" when shooting nebulae. We cannot obtain a different perspective or background. It all looks to same to everyone, in Australia, France or Argentina. The aesthetic emotion can be provoked (and generate art) because sky objects have natural beauty that can be captured. Sometimes we are able to do it and the widefield folks are advantaged, I would say. The situation is even worse for the supposed scientific aspect. What we do here is not science. The confusion stems from the fact that we use instruments that can also be used for scientific observation or activity. In order to do science you would need to test a hypothesis, answer a question with your observation or photography. Using the "scientific method" (what exactly is the scientific method is a pretty complex subject). What exactly are we testing when we are making a 20 hour exposure of the Soul Nebula? Not to talk about the absent replicability issue (same data can lead to very different outcomes when processed by different people). We are not asserting anything when we are posting a photo of M101. Some astrophotography can have scientific implications though. The planetary nebulae hunters, Xavier and Marcel, are the first that come to mind. But their discoveries themselves need "scientific confirmation". They usually post beautiful images of "planetary nebula candidates". The confirmation comes from a scientific test based usually on spectroscopy, leading to a scientific paper. It is a joint venture. Other examples are discoveries of supernovae (we had an example last year) or impacts on planets. But I'm afraid that the quasi majority of images on astrobin are useless for science. I haven't seen the problem of demarcation mentioned in this thread. It is a well known topic in the Philosophy of Science. And that's what the title talks about. The simples and most famous criterion comes from Karl Popper (even if it has received heavy blows from Kuhn or Feyerabend) and it's the falsifiability one. The problem is that generally in astrophotography, there is nothing to be falsified. We are not making hypotheses when posting photos. There's nothing scientific about it. Clear skies, Bogdan |
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I dunno…I take pictures of galaxies and hang them on my wall because they give me pleasure. Is it art? Well, I might hang a Ansel Adams image on the wall because it gives me pleasure too. Which one is art? Maybe in the eyes of some, astro images might not be “good art” but I think that either way it’s a form of art. Johh |
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I strongly agree with @Brian Boyle , @John Hayes , and @Bogdan Borz. I too did science for a living, publishing my studies in refereed journals. I taught graduate courses in experimental design and data analysis at my university. I also produced art and entertainment as a film and television producer. About 8 years ago I found that the hardware and software of astrophotography enable me to make images that were pretty good and getting better. Since dozens of subjective decisions that were informed by my taste and intention were required in creating an image, and I realized that astrophotography had reach a place were one could create credible art. As Bogdan pointed out, I started the Fine Art Astrophotography group here at AstroBin four years ago to explore what promised to be a new category of fine art photography. At that time I began entering my astroimages in international photography competitions and, to my amazement, the work was well received, sometimes winning the nature category. Soon after, some competitions began to include an astrophotography subcategory in their nature photography category. So, yes, astrophotography is now more widely viewed as a type of fine art photography. For me, like other types of fine art photography, the "performance" of the astroimage is a critical to transforming it into art. The printing of an image for display has been the cornerstone of fine art photography for 100 years. I've spent more time and money experimenting with printing/display approaches of my astroimages than I have in time and gear I use to capture and process the images. Moving a dramatic, luminous digital image viewed on a computer screen (transmitted light) into an analog image hung on the wall (viewed with reflected light) is extremely challenging. Simply printing a file often produces an image that is muddy and flat. I typically generate 50-100 work prints, tweaking the image file, print media, and media processing techniques to create an image that retains the life and luminance of the image I see on my computer screen. My work is also pretty big, typically 45"x60" so I work with photography labs in the U.S. and Germany. When it works, the image can strongly touch the emotions of some viewers, which is my intention in making the art. Finally, a common feature of art is that it is offered in art galleries and purchased by collectors. I am delighted to report that my work is represented by two galleries, one in Carmel, California (Gallery Sur) and another in New York City (Waterfall Gallery). I have also been fortunate to have my work included in a number of art exhibit. For example, on April 25th three of my pieces will in a new exhibit at the Monterey Museum of Art entitled, Into The Blue. I apologize for going on and on about this, but wanted to make the point that there is strong empirical evidence that astrophotography can be art, if that is the intention of the photographer. Gary |
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Bogdan Borz: Not according to Merriam-Webster: "[K]nowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method." (emphasis added). As I pointed out above, the definition says especially, not only. So at least the editors there recognize there is more to science than simply applying the scientific method. I wrote, or managed teams that wrote, code for 35 years. I think it's safe to say I was a systems engineer. I wouldn't say that someone who bashes out a two-line script to rename a bunch of files is a systems engineer. But that doesn't mean he didn't code something. I don't consider myself a scientist. But I do think I'm engaged in science on some level with astrophotography. |
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John Hayes: It's an art. Astrophotography depicts the beauty and the awe-inspiring in the natural universe. It requires talent, skill, patience, knowledge and planning. Astrophotographs can evoke emotions of mystery and wonder in people. They can give us perspective on how fragile, brief and precious life is. Yes, AP can be art. I was one of the first American composers to score an entire TV series using MIDI instruments. Instrumentalists were pissed off at me. Musician's unions heaped their scorn at synthesizers. People thought that I thought I was an orchestra. I didn't and I wasn't. I was merely experimenting with new music technologies to create music. We make music with bone, metal, animal gut and wood -- and with our own throats. Now we also make music with electrons and bits and bytes--and as astrophotographers we also make images with bits and bytes. The innovations of yesterday may become the traditions of today and sometimes the innovations of today become the traditions of tomorrow. That's us, we humans experience wonder and beauty and so we make stuff that tries to reveal that aspect of ourselves. Sometimes we succeed. The sciences might make us smarter, but the arts can make us better, not always, but it does happen. When I was 11 years old I read 1984. And then I read it again. Through literature Orwell taught me much about how humans fail to govern themselves ethically, responsibly and peacefully. Orwell taught me more than any history class I ever took. That's art. It stays with you. It sinks in and changes you. It motivates us to realize the full potential of our humanity, which is why totalitarian governments and dictators fear art and ban it. It can shake people's worldview and their understanding of themselves. Tyrants and other pipsqueaks who like to play God are threatened by art, which is why Shakespeare always wrote about mythical kings living long before his time. Otherwise they would have done away with him. Jerry |
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John Hayes: Well, if they produce an aesthetic feeling in the viewer, they most likely are art. I hang them too lol. I never said that astrophotography cannot produce artistic images. Just that not all its productions are art. I doubt you would hang on your wall a picture of a house taken by your neighbour, even if it was with the same camera used by Ansel Adams. One is an artistic photo, one is not. The border is fuzzy and the same applies to astrophotography, which is just a subdomain of photography. Every sunspot Ha photo or image of Copernicus crater is not a work of art by default . But some of them can capture a spectacular scenery and produce awe in the viewer, becoming art. |
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Timothy Martin:Bogdan Borz: You cannot solve the demarcation problem based on a dictionary definition. Well, would you apply a non-scientific method for doing science then? Science is not only about laws or hypothesis testing. But when we do astrophotographical images, we are are making observations. What scientific process or discourse are they part of? What is being tested, confirmed or used for hypothesis generation? Nothing most of the time. Xavier and Marcel are usually asserting something with their image: "This is an observation of a new planetary nebula". This is can be investigated scientifically and is part of a scientific process, the collection of data in an accepted paradigm (to follow Kuhn). I agree with you of course that we are engaged with science on some level. You can confirm scientific findings, you can master the same techniques that can be used in scientific research (like exoplanet transits). But imaging transits with your red filter and creating a graph is not astrophotography. |
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Bogdan Borz: I'm not even remotely interested in solving the demarcation problem. It's one of those manufactured issues, like the old "problem" of determining how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, that cannot even have a "solution." I'm interested in what's reasonable. I think it's completely reasonable to suggest that a crowd-sourced repository of more than a million, well-documented, images of astronomical objects--and counting--makes a contribution to, and is therefore directly and integrally a part of, science. To suggest otherwise, to me, is farcical. I admire and appreciate what Marcel, Xavier, Bray, and others are doing. I admire and appreciate those who are taking spectra and looking for exoplanets, asteroids, and planetesimals. All worthy pursuits and obviously contributory to science. But I also appreciate what Bogdan Borz, John Hayes, Brian Boyle, Gary Lopez, and countless others are doing not only to contribute to the furtherance of science directly by participating in building this repository, but also to the contribution their efforts make to science education and dissemination in general. We are beset on all sides by fools--people who think our images are fake: people who think the earth is flat, Apollo 11 landed in Arizona, and COVID-19 is a fraud perpetrated by the "deep state." In many ways, we are the front line against this tomfoolery. As astrophotographers, many of us are the only ones in our communities who share the reality of the cosmos, and of science, with our fellow citizens in a uniquely persuasive way. It has an effect. I've seen it. This world is in desperate need of a dose of reality. And our avocation is one of the few things that has a meaningful and lasting impact in that regard--which is yet a second way it contributes directly to science. There may be other ways, as well. But that's enough for me. |
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| Can Astrophotography be considered a new form of art that utilizes scientific tools and methods to create unique and awe-inspiring works? Or should it be designated as a distinct branch altogether? |
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Timothy Martin:Bogdan Borz: Sorry for the late reply Timothy. Well, the demarcation problem is really important, central I would say in our actual post-truth world. The demarcation problem is about what separates science from non-science or pseudo-science. Given the rest of your post, it's paradoxical that you present it this way. It is a main issue in the philosophy of science and it has preoccupied the best minds in this domain, including Einstein who reflects on these issues in "The World as I See It". You raised a very good point in the end. I fully agree with you that we can play an important social role in promoting a scientific worldview. I think that's what you wanted to emphasize. We can present the beauty of the Universe and make people interested in studying it, by doing science or reading science, getting familiar with scientific theories and concepts. Hopefully we can be counteracting force to all the nonsense out there. Even though I'm on the skeptical side, when I see how popular some accounts are on social media propagating CGI or mediocre photos as 'astrophotography'. Or when I see mediocre planetary photos getting thousands of likes on Twitter. But the show must go on. And we all know Apollo 11 actually landed in Wisconsin, not in Arizona : )). Cheers, Bogdan |
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Bogdan Borz:Timothy Martin:Bogdan Borz: I think I went way too far in dissing the demarcation problem. You're right that it's important. My response was more motivated by the futility I feel in me even being able to fully grasp it, much less contribute to any definitive solution of it. Yes, I do feel like our main contribution is to get as many people as possible into finding out about how things actually are. But please don't discount the value that a gigantic repository of images could have on future scientific efforts. No, our images are no good for spectroscopy, astrometry, or many other advanced scientific pursuits. But they do contain data that I contend could be of some use down the road. A couple of examples might be a star that just completely disappears, lending support to the idea that sometimes stars just collapse directly into black holes without a whimper. Our data could directly contribute to the knowledge of when such a thing occurs. Another major thing I see us doing that could contribute is merely the fact that between the lot of us, we're constantly scanning the entire sky. There just aren't enough purely scientific instruments in the world to do that. I'm sure there are more examples, but it's hard to predict how really good pictures of these things might be useful 10, 20, 100, 1,000, or even 5,000 years down the road. |
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From my background as a traditional photographer, I've come to believe that Astro photography is more science. This mainly owes to the extreme amount of automation. There's also the focus on acquiring "data", processing it, and re-processing it. In photography, you get the shot or you go back out and reshoot it, if you can. Most things in space are always in the same place, according to science. Photography is not so much about altering reality as much as being artistic with framing, lighting related to time of day, and items like juxtaposition of elements such as foreground and background. And of course there is science involved with photography, as with almost everything else. There is never a time doing photography that I can just set the camera up and let it work by itself all night, while I do something else or go to sleep. This is very common in astrophotography. Certainly, editing images becomes more art, especially when colors are altered and non-natural color palettes are used. It actually becomes a form of abstract art. my photography gallery: https://inspirationimages.zenfolio.com/ |
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From my background as a traditional photographer, I've come to believe that Astro photography is more science. This mainly owes to the extreme amount of automation. There's also the focus on acquiring "data", processing it, and re-processing it. In photography, you get the shot or you go back out and reshoot it, if you can. Most things in space are always in the same place, according to science. |
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Don’t confuse the communication of the beauty of the universe to the general public through astro-imaging as science. It is a worthy endeavor that might help to support funding astrophysics and space missions; but it is not science! Science is a process that is aimed at understanding how things work in the physical world through the process of gathering data that is used to confirm theories. It has nothing to do with any belief system and the parameters that determine good image data for a specific measurement are completely different that what might determine a “good image” in the eyes of those of us trying to produce “pretty pictures”. This whole discussion reinforces my observation that a LOT of people don’t really understand what science is or how it works—and I find that disturbing. I’m about to join the Union of Concerned Scientists for this very reason. In my view, way too many folks have been denied a sold education in the basics of science and that is leading to profound, harmful effects in both government and in how people view the concept of something as basic as the meaning of “truth”. It might take a generation to fix it but as a society, this is something we need to fix. John |
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John Hayes: All true, art and science are in different domains, with different methods, techniques and goals. Carl Sagan wrote that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We don't know what we don't know. When I was a kid I learned there were about 100 billion suns in our galaxy. Today the number is now around 400 billion. Yet we're inside the galaxy so much of its size and shape may be hidden from us, there very well could be a trillion suns in what we call the Milky Way. That's the beauty of the scientific method, always progressing and evolving through admitting error, miscalculation, and employing better tools and technology. We've been told that the entire universe, which means everything, is around 13.8 billion years old. Yet just a few days ago, a new study says the universe may be 27 billion years old. This new estimate nearly doubles the age of the universe! https://www.earth.com/news/new-study-claims-our-universe-is-27-billion-years-old-double-the-current-age-estimate/ Though the scientific method is the most objective method we have to try and ascertain truth, scientists are human beings, and like all of us, subject to error, bias and cultural influences. And then of course there's the subjectivity of being alive that science alone isn't going to fully comprehend. For example, if I go to a concert and come away enthralled, inspired and moved by Mozart's symphony #40 in G-minor, I can go into the audio lab and analyze all the frequencies, waveforms and amplitudes of what I heard. I can plot out how those frequencies and amplitudes change and repeat over time. But none of this will in any way explain why the music produced the artistic, intellectual and emotional effect it had on me. John is right about science education and that our culture's view of science needs to be deepened and clarified. Along with scientific literacy, so too our emotional and moral literacy needs also to evolve. We discovered the vast store of energy within the atom, truly a scientific breakthrough, and then proceeded to make atomic bombs and drop them on two cities. We cannot continue merely being clever primates who cannot successfully govern ourselves without state violence. Intelligence without wisdom, kindness and empathy will probably guarantee our demise. |
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I’d argue it can be one, both, or neither. Astrophotography allows latitude for creative expression and presentation in composition and a host of editing choices, and that allows for artistic expression. It is restrictive (e.g. we cannot really change our perspective; just our field of view and what is represented) but I’d argue saying it can’t be art rather follows an argument that tries to claim landscape photography cannot be art. But someone who is, say, simply trying to reflect an object as it is without endeavoring in creative artistic expression is moving away from what might be called art (deviating from a norm as a natural consequence of editing doesn’t imply artistic expression), nor EAA simply for the purpose if viewing an object, and imaging for scientific analysis does not concern itself with such things. But the promotional images created for Hubble, James Webb, etc. are certainly artistic expression. “Art” being quite subjective, of course. On the science side of things, even an image created for beauty can end up reflecting data of scientific interest. A new object, for example, even perhaps discovered by accident. Timing an event of something which takes place with a comet. Even if the data is not reliable in a sense that may be soundly compared to other images. And as the data moves more and more into scientific purpose and a more purposeful representation of data captured, and eventually into data captured exclusively for science, the scientific merit of course increases. |
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John Hayes: I hear exactly where you're coming from. But I think you're making this too harsh and too narrow. Either the beauty of the universe we communicate is real, or it's not. If it is, then it's part of "knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths. . ." as the dictionary says. If it's not real, then every kook who has accused me of faking my images on Facebook is right. It's not derived using the rigorous mechanisms of current scientific research, it won't get me tenure, and it's not likely that it will get me written up in scientific journals (unless I discover something new quite by accident--a result wholly outside application of the scientific method). But I'm not making up these images. I'm using well-established methods and principles to gather and process this data--exactly the same methods and principles scientific organizations around the world use to do public outreach. My purpose is to communicate the actual beauty, structure, and composition of the universe. If you like, call it scientific journalism. I keep coming back to this: Surely even you wouldn't deny that data gathering is a very large facet of science. The data we gather today may be of little use to modern-day researchers and scientists. But again, if it does represent reality, then no one here can speak for what some future scientist may do with such a large body of information in the fullness of time. |
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Timothy Martin:John Hayes: I’m sorry but you are confusing engineering and technology with science. Yes, you may indeed be gathering image data “using well-established methods and principles” that scientific researchers around the world use; but that doesn’t make posting or publishing your images a scientific endeavor. I’m not being too narrow about this. I’m trying to explain what science is and to distinguish it from what it isn’t. Science research may involve a lot of engineering using a lot equipment similar to what amateur imagers have access to; but it is what is done with the data that distinguishes what most of us do with our images from what’s involved in scientific research. Science is a method; not a thing or a belief. Using your images to “communicate beauty, structure and composition of the universe” is a nice thing but unless you connect those things to how they are being used as a part of a study that is aimed at answering a question or in a historical sense to explain how a question was answered, you are not producing scientific journalism. You are merely sharing the beauty of the universe with those who see your images and in my view, that’s art. I’m okay if you want to call it “Technical Art” simply because there’s a lot more involved in gathering the data and producing an image than what Ansel Adams did to produce his prints (although he put in a lot his own expertise into how those prints were exposed and made archival). A while back, I read the story of a doctor who lived (as I recall) in the Portland area who worked on reproducing Hubble’s measurement of the distance to the Andromeda galaxy using a 14” telescope. It took the large part of a year to take all of the data and to reduce it but that guy was able to confirm Hubble’s number to within a very tight error budget. He wasn’t doing something new, but he was still doing science! A big part of the scientific method is that results should be repeatable between different observers and methods and that’s exactly what that guy did. It took a LOT of work and he had to solve a lot of problems, but he confirmed Hubble’s numbers. Hubble used film and the 100” telescope on Mt Wilson to gather his data. That guy used a 14” Celestron and modern digital cameras to measure the period of Hubble’s variable star. The images that he took were for the purpose of photometry; not for hanging on the wall. He didn’t publish his results in a journal but the article that he wrote about it was indeed scientific journalism—of very high quality! It was an impressive accomplishment. John |
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I'm not trying to be obstinate here, and you make a compelling argument, but in the end, I don't find it persuasive in this case.John Hayes: Okay. We're making progress. John Hayes: Seems like thousands of people have repeated the result of revealing the scale and structure of M31 here over the last 10 years thousands of times (more than 15,000 times according to a quick Astrobin search). Many of those efforts are extremely well documented (another big part of science, right?) and represent a result first obtained by scientists in professional observatories. Are all those images, including the ones from Mount Wilson, Mount Palomar, the Lick Observatory, and other bastions of science over the last 100 years not science? Or just some of those images? Or just our images here on Astrobin? John Hayes: Very little here on Astrobin is new, yet almost all of it repeats a prior result from different observers and different, but likely similar, methods. John Hayes: Very impressive. He displayed an incredible level of skill and perseverance. He went far beyond my capabilities or those of most people here in doing that. Is it a requirement that to be science, an activity has to reach a particular level of complexity or difficulty? And what's wrong with hanging a scientific result on the wall--any scientific result? Does that somehow invalidate it? I've got a picture of Schrödinger's Equation hanging on the wall in my office. I think it's still science. John Hayes: Why would he do that? Perhaps to communicate the repetition of the Hubble result to a wider audience? A non-scientific audience, perhaps (given that his article was not published in a scientific journal)? And is quality the measure? Isn't that completely subjective? John Hayes: But we are answering questions with our images--many, many questions. What does this thing look like? What kind of structure does it have? What are the relationships between this piece of it and that (at least visually)? And we raise questions with it. Why is that area dark? Why is that area red? Why are all those stars clumped together in one spot? How far away is it? Our images don't answer all those questions. Many of the answers may be well known due to deeper scientific inquiry using more complex methods and processes (we've already established that it doesn't have to be new to be science). And many of those questions may still be open and subject to future research. I may not know all the history and science regarding an object. I may not be able to tell you how the discovered went about discovering it. But there the thing is in the image. A photojournalist covering a war is probably very much in the dark about all the whys and wherefores about the battle he's covering. And he doesn't know who fired the mortar that made the hole in the ground next to where he's standing or what kind of mortar it was. But his pictures still might have value in the larger context of the conflict. And they may have an impact in ways that neither he nor his colleagues understand at the time they are taken. Nor does he have to be a general to report on the war in a meaningful way. John Hayes: I'm sorry you feel that way. I, too, am concerned. As I've said before, I don't have to be able to play the Rach 3 to make music on a piano. I don't have to be able to beat Bobby Fisher to play chess. And I don't have to do photometry to do science. There are varying degrees of expertise in every discipline, and every contribution has its own value, which is utterly subjective. What I'm reading from you here is--at its core--that you don't think astrophotography is science because you don't value it as such. Not because it doesn't contain all the hallmarks of science. I would also disagree without about science not employing any sort of belief system. It utterly depends on logic, which fundamentally is mathematics. One has to believe in logic and reason for science to make any sense. And yet, the foundation of logic rests on axioms we just accept on faith as self-evident. The physical sciences rely heavily on mathematics, which also relies on postulates that we merely accept as true. Many scientists even express a zeal about their avocation that one would normally find in a pulpit--touting mathematical models as though they are actually physical laws of nature (Lawrence Krauss is probably the worst about this that I've seen). More thoughtful scientists (e.g., Brian Green and others) understand this issue and and know they are using mathematics to model things that may or may not be fundamentally mathematical. And then there's at least one more category, represented by Max Tegmark, who understands the limitations of mathematical modeling but still posits that the universe contains only mathematical properties. So my concern is twofold: (1) that many people don't understand science at all and either reject it, or include things in it that don't belong, and (2) that people who understand science at a high level make no room for lower-level science and alienate those who are doing their best to understand it and contribute to it, albeit not always in a pristine way. What it all comes down to is that you don't believe I'm doing science, and I do. I personally know scientists who think astrophotography is a scientific pursuit and those who don't. As I told Bogdan, the demarcation problem is a difficult one that doesn't yet seem to have any firm resolution. It's beyond my ken. And it's unlikely we'll figure it out here. But I do enjoy this conversation, so please don't take offense to anything I've said (and believe it or not, I've changed my mind many times as the result of well-constructed discussions with people on the internet). I sure don't mean any offense. |
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Leaving aside theoretical work, which doesn't necessarily require data to be science, data-taking is indeed a large part of science. However, it is a necessary, but not sufficient condition. Data-taking needs to be done via a controlled experiment to ensure an unbiased outcome, or at least where the experimental biases are understood and accounted for. That is not what we do here. One might argue that data we take might eventually be useful for scientific purposes. And I wouldn't disagree. When I was a PhD astronomy student in Durham in the 80s, I was in the office next door to a researcher who used Chinese historical observations of solar eclipses to determine the slowing of the rotation of the earth over the centuries. Was he doing science? Absolutely. Were the records of the Chinese historians useful? Absolutely. Were the Chinese historians doing science at the time? Absolutely not. They were merely recording the time and location of when an eclipse happened. Please don't confuse taking the data for an unknown purpose as doing science, even if it eventually turns out to be useful. If you are taking data for science, it means you have a purpose for the data and are taking it under appropriately controlled conditions. Otherwise anyone taking data can claim they are doing science. And look what damage that has done. Tobacco companies, climate change deniers have all used biased data to reinforce their self-interest. To paraphrase a famous campaign line, its not science, stupid. CS Brian |
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I think a lot of people disagree with John simply because they think classifying astrophotography as art or as something other than science somehow lessens it. It doesn’t. It’s a worthy endeavor. It just doesn’t happen to fall into the category of “doing science” because very few of us (there are a few notable exceptions) are setting out to gather evidence that is either consistent with or contradicts a scientific hypothesis. That’s just not what we are doing. It’s not insulting to suggest Astrobin is full of technical art, rather than data aimed at scientific uses. Even if you use your images to educate, it’s not science. That’s outreach or education. They are good and important endeavors in their own right. They aren’t diminished by being something other than science. Seriously, how many of us have thought about an existing hypothesis or theory, decided we wanted to test it, decided how to test it, collected and analyzed the data in a well documented, repeatable fashion, and compared the result to what the hypothesis or theory predicted? That would be science. That’s not what we do. Heck, I couldn’t reproduce the same photographic result two times in a row even using the same dataset. Science must be repeatable. Astrophotography, as practiced by most of us, is not. I make decisions about how to stretch my data, how to saturate my colors, how to blend channels, etc. based purely on aesthetic desires and virtually never record my settings. That’s reasonable and appropriate for art. Or for education. Or for illustration. But it doesn’t happen to be science. |
