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Timothy Martin:John Favalessa: I'm so humbled by your comment Tim. Thank you...made my day. -john |
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Hi Salvatore, I am entering a bit late into the discussion. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but I think you started the thread when the IOTD was a Telescope Live image. Well there you go. That's one category of photo that simply has nothing to do with the IOTD on astrobin. Awarding images for processing only, when the winner had nothing to do with the conception of the image, installing or mastering the telescope, thinking of the framing or of the exposure, is very different from images fully conceived by the photographer. Hubble images are pretty much in the same category. The merit is simply not the same. Of course remote observatories have an advantage. That's why we choose to install our scopes there no? But as you pointed out, things are not that simple (some live in the city, some in the rural parts where they have skies better than some observatories). The percentages are meaningless if you do not divide them by the number of submission from remote observatories vs backyard scopes. You'll see that the proportion of remote is superior. I don't think it would be useful to create supplementary categories since what we reward is an exceptional photo created by an amateur with his equipment. Both satisfy this. I understand the frustration of talented backyard amateurs that rightly feel they cannot obtain the same results as a 24 CDK in Chile. They are correct. But sometimes you can create something beautiful even from the city, you need more time and sometimes more mastery when light pollution is present. However, what would be nice to see is some awards that recognize the dedication and talent in producing great images under bad conditions. I consider some backyard imagers more impressive than some remote ones because they are able to create superb photography with low-end equipment under bad skies. I know it's subjective, but it would be nice to see it recognized by judges (capturing that "He/She was able to do that from there!" feeling). Even if it does not have the quality of a big scope under pristine skies. So IMHO, data you had nothing to do in obtaining, choosing the subject or framing should not be introduced in the IOTD contest. Chilescope used to do some processing contests, that's a different animal. Wei Hao had some good suggestions about the problems with awards going to the same reprocessed data (judges should be able to recognize those images if a lambda user is able to). Overall, the IOTD process seems pretty mature. What changes I guess is that astrophotography by being more successful becomes more commercial and less a passionate amateur domain. All best, Bogdan |
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Bogdan Borz: I agree with this. But I want to point out that I did not make such suggestions in this thread. The credit should be given to someone else. |
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John Favalessa: I wouldn't feel too bad, I've been growing in imaging since 2015 and the IOTD eludes me to this day. It took MONTHS for me to acquire data for my latest image, which I thought was pretty impressive, but not even a TPN, let alone any feedback came forth. There are members and content producers who rock out content on this site at a furious pace, with equipment and skies I can only dream about. Follow them long enough and you'll see a repeating pattern of wins, and of course, why not? They're gorgeous images, I'll give them that, but it's just not achievable to us average Joes. Now add collaborators to the mix, where groups of elite imagers pool their data together to create insane views of our universe, often comprising of hundreds of hours of integration, and of course the advent of sponsors, and it's pretty clear that the lowly amateur is slowly getting pushed to the back of the astro-bus. It's frustrating because I've been around long enough to see things progress to where they are now. It's not the the same AB anymore. I love imaging the universe, but I enjoy it even more when I can share it with people who are not only amazed, but also appreciate the work that went into producing these images and occasionally recognize it. I don't feel that AB is that place anymore. That attention is now reserved for others. I continue to post my pictures here because it's merely a repository, a place I can send family or friends to so they can view my work. It hasn't been clear for a month, but I have been blessed with one clear night tonight, so I am off to chase photons like it will be my last chance. |
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It makes me sad to see people placing so much emphasis on Astrobin awards. To me, that’s not the point of Astrobin. It never has been for me. I find it incredibly useful as a learning tool—finding out about targets, equipment, techniques, and processes. I’ve learned an incredible amount here and continue to learn from it every single day. I’ve made great friends here. I take great joy in every picture they post. These are the things I value. It’s the only truly civilized social media site I’ve seen in more than 40 years going back the CompuServ days in the early 80s and Usenet in the 90s. Beyond that, I find value in its function as a high-resolution repository for my images and technical data. If I’m looking for unqualified exuberance about everything I do, I’ll get a dog. If I’m looking for unqualified support for everything I do, I’ll ask my mom (or I would if she were still alive). If I want constructive criticism, I’ll talk to my wife. And if I want actionable feedback about my imaging, I’ll talk to the Astrodoc, Ron Brecher. I appreciate the support and advice I get here, but I neither expect nor demand it. And frankly, being a student of human nature for 65 years, I find it hard to believe that many who cry out for honest feedback would receive it very well (that’s my honest feedback about that—so we’ll see how well it is received). In addition to the personal value I place on Astrobin, I think it has great value in the “big wide world” as a massive crowd-sourced repository of astronomical data. There are the exceptional imagers here like Marcel Dreschler’s team, Bray Falls, Nico Carver, and others who make important direct discoveries. But beyond that, my belief is that all this data will serve as a valuable resource for future researchers decades or even centuries from now. I’ll never know for sure, but that’s my belief for the future. I feel privileged to be able to contribute to that. I’ve been here a little over three years. It has indeed changed a lot—for the better, in my view, in that time: more people collaborating, more people going remote, more people upgrading gear, more people getting better and better at this. A lot of people getting a whole lot better. These are all good things for amateur astronomy and for society in general. We have a huge problem in this world right now with the unashamed, unabashed, and often unchallenged overt denial of undeniable reality. Amateur astronomy injects a nice dose of reality into the public discourse. Its advancement is therefore, in my mind, important to the betterment of society. To me, the main importance of IOTD is to further that cause by enhancing the perception and acceptance of this avocation as something wondrous, meaningful, and real. So it needs to produce the best possible image each and every day. It sometimes falls short. It’s not perfect. No human system is. But in my view, it’s the best system for vetting quality that exists for this pursuit right now. There can always be room for improvement. But that needs to be undertaken in a thoughtful and pragmatic way. There’s still plenty of room for the backyard astronomer. I’m in the process of placing three scopes remotely. But I’ll keep two in the back yard and I’ll continue to use them. I’m not doing any of it to win Astrobin awards. I’m doing it because I love it and I want to share it with others. We had the neighborhood kids over to look through the C11 during the annular eclipse. What a great joy that was! Next spring, the local symphony will be performing The Planets by Gustav Holtz and will display some of my images. I often exhibit in the city’s open gallery shows at the municipal art center and get a million great questions from people about the objects and the process of photographing them. There are so many reasons to do this that have nothing to do with badges. Positive experiences abound out there if you avail yourself of them. So I hope those of you who are frustrated will look past those frustrations to other things and keep shooting and keep sharing here. |
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Wei-Hao Wang:Bogdan Borz: : ) Sorry Wei-Hao, I must have confused some posts, it's a long thread. |
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Timothy Martin: Timothy, Great comments and congratulations! Can I send my images directly to your mom?  |
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I have only been on AB for a year and live in a Bortle 8.99 location so a) operating my equipment sent to a remote location is my only option to enjoy this hobby and b) I have definitely felt as though there is very little love given to images taken with refractors, and that what are essentially optical aberrations (diffraction spikes) are considered beautiful and rewarded, whereas soft stars from refractors aren't in favor. The latter point, of course, is not me deciphering an algorithm - it's just my feeling, and similarly everyone that thinks they had a good chance of being recognized will point to some factor they think worked against them. in other words, Salvatore literally cannot win this argument! That said, being recognized in a worldwide community definitely comes with its benefits - social at least but can also open doors to other commercial opportunities. Hence the desire to be recognized. Therefore, I would like to propose that users like me be given the option of not seeing any badges/awards/top picks/etc. Let me just come to AB to look at beautiful astro images and let me decide which ones I want to see more details for. Like a lot of commentators here, I do not care for an IOTD or Top Pick badge in the absolute but, psychologically, it definitely makes you question how much more I need to do to make my images beautiful like the chosen ones (i.e. should I give up refractors and opt for RCOS RCs??) . |
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Chiradeep Chhaya: Just an observation, that there are Astro-photographers with a focus on the astronomy (know that the diffraction spikes are artifacts), and there are astro-Photographers with a focus on the images (like the "effect"/mood that diffraction spikes give) and a lot of people in between. I am sure we could categorize users a whole bunch of different ways too. Along the lines of the this comment, perhaps we can customize the current board for users. For example, to view the latest images of those whom I follow, I have to one by one, click on the notifications I receive. This is laborious and time consuming. However, it would allow the user to focus viewing images according to their style, or those they wish to emulate. Salvatore, Is there a way we could pull up a version of the image board containing just the images of those we follow, or would this be too computationally intensive for the server. Cheers, Dave |
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David Payne: Do you mean this?  |
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Salvatore Iovene:David Payne: Exactly like that, yes! Thanks for implementing this so quickly. |
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David Payne: As much as can be fast, surely I didn't implement and deploy that in less than 5 minutes :-) This feature has existed for many, many years :-D |
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Salvatore Iovene:David Payne: I was just trying to be witty to hide my embarassment at not seeing it before.  |
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I know IOTD etc are not "competions" but: 🤪 |
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Ok, any selection based on a limited number of outcomes can be called a "competition". But who are you competing against? Who are the competitors? Honestly, this way of thinking is pretty unhealthy. I like to check the Nominations or Top Picks section because there is high quality work out there. Some of the people selected there are people I follow anyway and some of them are my friends. I am not feeling like I am competing "against them". I would say that a more sane way of viewing this award system is a recognition of the inherent quality of the images posted. That's pretty much what's to be expected from this selection process. If I had to rate some images that I like, I would find it very difficult to produce an objective hierarchy between them. And to come back to the subject backyard vs. remote, which seems to be central to the complaints we generally see in these threads. Remote does not mean "unfair" - that seems to me the silent complaint. People that are going remote are usually already experienced astrophotographers, that are already more likely to produce high quality images anyway. It's not beginners that discover autofocus that are going to invest in a remote observatories and sending equipment overseas. Some photographers produce fantastic images from backyard and also fantastic images when going remote (just check Min Xie's gallery). I had the chance to experience both worlds and remote observatories are not all milk and honey. Lots of problems, anything can go wrong, sometimes you pull your hairs out. Any objective system of evaluation (like a blinded one) is going to favor remote because that's the purpose of remote observatories! Better skies coupled with experienced users. That does not make it unfair. There is indeed a spectrum from backyard amateur to professional astronomer and remote users tend more towards the latter. But once you reached a certain level remote is increasing the number of images you can produce, not necessarily the quality. Overall, the IOTD is pretty balanced I think and astrobin offers a nice result of amateur collaboration in organizing an image selection that can actually offer a chance for backyard astros or people with less followers. That's the main advantage of this "competition": the possibility for less known astrophotographers having their work known via an TP or IOTD, which is really complicated in other cyber-places. Maybe all these selectors and judges that do voluntary work deserve some of our appreciation, not only criticism. |
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Bogdan Borz: Merely criticising people for offering suggestions when asked for them will result in no more suggestions and stagnation. These threads can often be "whack-a-mole" - as soon as someone suggests something and picks up their head, it is beaten down. I support having more categories and awards providing more feedback. I don't care so much about IOTD, because that only satisfies, at most 366 imagers per year. It's like the acadamy awards show, where there is only one award given. No-one sees the best director, best actor/actress, best foreign animated short and whether or not you like Tom Hanks/Meryl Streep (or god forbid, preachy Leonardo DeCaprio) - they would appear in the every film that gets the award. The fact of the matter is that I see sooo many excellent images, particularly in the past year, that deserve an attaboy that it is a shame they often don't get any feedback. For my personal viewing, I wish I could select a subset of all the images available that I am more interested in - in my case it is those images that I learn the most from - astronomically. I find many images contain lots of information about their equipment, exposure times, software used, etc. - yet contain virtually no information about the object itself, and very rarely any interpretation of what is going on in the object! This is far, far more interesting to me then who manufactured their brand of sensor. I would much rather talk to Edwin Hubble than Ansel Adams. So here is my suggestion at a second "category" of IOTD - astronomically significance! Instead of asking for a day by day account of each frame taken, why don't we ask the submitter which category of "IOTD" contest they would like to enter, or why they are . They could easly pick "back yard", "own remote", "astronomical significance", "new processing technique", "beginner", "EAA", or multiple categories if they choose. Aside from any IOTD contest, this in turn, would help me view the images that of greatest interest to me personally. I feel that the current system can be excellent, yet can be improved both at the same time - many excellent businesses incorporate "continuous improvement" in their culture. It is decidedly unhealthy to sit there and just debunk every suggestion in favour of the status quo and stagnation, especially as conditions change around us. Maybe many don't like my specific idea, and that is fine. If it is a lack of volunteers/help, I can volunteer and I am sure others would too. Are there other suggestions? Is there a different constraint on continuous improvement? Hopefully this was the spirit in which this thread was created. Clear Skies! Dave |
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I was being sarcastic in my last post (3 above this one). Some say (including Salvatore) that the Awards are not competition, but clearly most of us and even this site disagrees. Update: After 2 years of not even getting a nomination, and shortly after my post here on this discussion, I got a nomination 😀🍺🙃! Coincidence? I didn't think the image was even worth submitting. subsequent much better images of mine...not even a nod. I've personally moved on and I am, sadly, considering never submitting an image again 😩 ...some of the fun of this site lost. Thinking about all this some more - I use awards in the search criteria to filter on...to look at the specific integration, filters, quality of skies, descriptions, color choices, on and on. There are so many great images not even getting a nod these days...my search/research is unfortunately missing these and counter productive. I so agree with Dave's post directly above. I would like to see even more nominations giving out. only makes sense due to the increased number of astrophotographers on this site and the quality of images. Since reading the Equipment, Acquisition details and Description is important for continued learning, I would exclude images without all three of these inputs. I would also like to filter on "backyard" images only or by Bortle sky, but we would need to add these "new" Awards types. At a minimum that would be my wish. john PS I've dialoged with a former reviewer who said there are biases and favorites in the process. we deserve better. |
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John Favalessa: Hello John, great to hear you got a TPN! In fact there were discussions leading to adjustments in the process. Submitters have now 6 slots for images they can promote per day (upgraded from 5). Reviewers also have an additional slot reflecting the increasing number of images that deserve to be promoted. Cheers, John |
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John Favalessa: Hi John, you bring a very good additional point beyond the category discussion. I also noticed that there is a very distinct, uniform taste among the DS nominations. The nominations are all very similar in processing and look a like. There is not much variance, which makes it also very boring. Unfortunately that is self amplifying process, because many try simply to copy that specific style to get a foot hold in that game. And if you do not adopt this style, your are out. I am really missing diversity. |
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John Favalessa: Since recently, Equipment and Acquisition are indeed mandatory, in order to submit. John Favalessa: You can filter by "Backyard" on the Top Pick Nominations and Top Pick archive pages:   For the IOTD, you can do it using the search engine:  John Favalessa: There might be individuals who have biases and are part of the team, but these biases will always be statistically drowned by the randomness of the designations, the fact that advancement requires multiple votes, and the fact that the teams change over time. "We deserve better" - sure, every system can be improved, but I challenge anybody to show me a better selection process for astrophotography than AstroBin's IOTD/TP, and (this is crucial) one that is constantly improved and fine-tuned. |
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| Big thanks Salvatore! I've not stumbled on the "backyard" selection...will be helpful as I do learn so much looking at comparison images that have Equipment, Acquisition details and Description notated. JohnHen just mentioned that there is one more slot for the reviewers...long overdue based on the ever increasing number of us on this site and a that is a start in the right direction. -john |
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John Favalessa: One of the big issues I saw was how dismissals were being used. In my time as a reviewer/submitter, it was extremely unusual for me to dismiss an image. It quite literally had to be bad. I would never dismiss an image simply because of a style issue - it had to have gross errors. At least in my own images, I see far fewer dismissals now - and I don't think it is because I have gotten better, I think it is because the process is actively being tightened up to discourage this kind of abuse or misinterpretation. Ensuring a better chance for submitters to see the image is also a good thing. All of this, plus the additional slots for the staff, are all steps in the right direction. I don't think it is ever possible for this to be fully anonymous unless you ban IOTD staff from viewing the site - after all, many of the imagers follow each other. |
