Starship Asterisk*

I did not take the image. I only asked for it to be identified as a "composite" image. Dean :D

[quote="Dean Drumheller"]Exactly. "The word "composite" is so important, and simple. That's ALL I was pointing out. No name calling, or judgement of any kind intended !Dean[/quote]

Let me start to state that i do enjoy the images presented at APOD. Keep up the good work! Thanks to professional and 'amafessional' enthousiasts we, the Internet people, can see things we will never see in our lifetime with our own eyes, from the cosiness of our warm deskchairs. We do not have to suffer the agony of long freezing nights, harsh conditions, windchill and fatigue.

Next is a suggestion. In science it is common practice to keep a logbook, in which results of all your experiments are recorded. Such a log will enable to recreate the results, independently of the original observers and equipment. Reproducibility is one of the main pilars of science.

It is open to debate whether an image is an objective (meant as non-subjective) scientific result, subjected to scrutiny of others, or art, the subjective interpretation of the feelings of creator of the image. IMO an image is science. From that point of view i would prefer to read how the image was created. In the old days, when working with negatives, i always stated how my results were obtained: made on Ilford HP4 film, developed in Microfen for 30 minutes at 25°C, a Praktica body, a 240 mm lense, 5 minutes exposure time, compensated for the drift of the stars on an azimuthal telescope. Such information not only opens a window for the reader to try to obtain similar results, it might even encourage to do so.

When i see glorious images e.g. the one Dean Drumheller has published, i'm absolutely in the dark whether such a result is within reach of my -very simple / basic- equipment. It is now an educated guess: probably not within reach. Providing the information how the images was obtained, how it was handled and reported on APOD, will contribute to the stimulation of amateurs to practice the photographic aspects of astronomy.

To state absolutely without any doubt, i do not care nor do i take sides in the discussion, whether an image is composite, preprocessed, enhanced, clarified, denoised, transformed, warped. Just tell me how!


Regards,
Henk

Exactly. "The word "composite" is so important, and simple. That's ALL I was pointing out. No name calling, or judgement of any kind intended !

I recall even the photographer mentioned not having a problem with using the word. It accurately informs the viewer, in a landscape, not deep-sky image. I'm an old photojournalist, and needed to speak up.
Clear, happy skies. Dean

[quote="bystander"][quote="iamlucky13"]Hopefully the editors will take note of the desire to have composite images identified as such, although they might not have realized it when they wrote the caption.[/quote]
It would probably be easier to identify the ones that aren't composites. I would be willing to bet the majority of them are.[/quote]

The captions often give passing mention, which is enough for me:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search?composite

No need to describe exactly what was done. Just throw in "composite" as an adjective and we know what we're looking at.

I have absolutely no problem with composite pictures, or with other photo manipulation and enhancement techniques properly identified*. As Dan said, it helps overcome the limits of technology to present a better image.

Nice image, Dan! Makes me want to move to Flagstaff. :)

* 'Properly identified', in my view, may require no mention at all for some enhancement techniques.

[quote="iamlucky13"]Hopefully the editors will take note of the desire to have composite images identified as such, although they might not have realized it when they wrote the caption.[/quote]
It would probably be easier to identify the ones that aren't composites. I would be willing to bet the majority of them are.

Thanks for the reply Dan! I was actually about to explain the same technical details, but the actual photographer is even better.

Of course, you probably realize there's a frequent debate in photography about modern methods of "enhancing" pictures. I tend to lean towards minimal alterations personally, but I have no problems with others making composites, mosaics, or other modifications as long as there isn't any deception about the nature of the scene, which there certainly isn't in your picture.

Obviously, some of the other frequenters of the forum disagree. :wink:

Hopefully the editors will take note of the desire to have composite images identified as such, although they might not have realized it when they wrote the caption.

Thanks, Dan, for your reply. It is a very nice picture.

It is a common practice when combining night skies with foreground earth bound objects to form composite images. The [url=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080415.html]April 15 APOD from Sweden[/url] was probably made the same way (as were many other images on APOD) with no complaints. In fact many deep space photos of nebula and galaxies are comprised of many images taken thru multiple filters and recombined to form a pleasing image. Yet no one claims they are "faked". For example, [url=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080417.html]today's APOD of M63[/url] is a LRGB stack of exposures (7 or 30) taken thru three filters. See [url]http://astrophoto.com/M63LRGB.htm[/url]

Congratulations, Dan, for your APOD selection.

I had no idea an entire bulletin board is dedicated to this subject. I received an email directing me here, and asking if I cared to make a reply. Might as well.....

I have no qualms in stating that the image in question is a "composite".
However, two images were obtained in as rapid a succession as possible
from the same location at the same time. It would be better to have two cameras and take the shots truly simultaneously, but I can't afford that luxury. As many astrophotographers know, the stars move and the land doesn't. Today's modern color digital cameras and fast lenses ALMOST allow a photographer to get outstanding depth in the sky with an untracked mount and a very short exposure. Almost, but not quite. They also allow existing light imaging of the land under the night sky, but with a fairly long exposure (minutes). By placing the camera on a tracking mount for the sky, then repositioning the camera for the land and turning tracking off and making a much longer exposure to get more signal, both land and sky can be depicted without star trails or blurring of the land. The whole process takes about 5-10 minutes in the field. While purists will consider any type of composite "faked", and a certain amount of "hand work" is necessary to make the two images blend properly, I make no apologies for this method whatsoever. The method overcomes the limits of the technology to get a result that depicts the real world. Nor do I imply that the image is what the eye sees, it is what the camera sees, obviously, but it depicts the scene in a manner that extends the human sense of sight without giving wrong information or a misleading idea of what the place is like. I believe the image communicates the spirit of the place and the night. As an artist, I can hope to do no better.

Dan Duriscoe

[quote="bporter"] . . . While I'm reaching for the moon here, I'll also wish for a superimposed scale on photos of size-ambiguous planetary landscapes. Too often one can't tell if a feature is meters or hundreds of meters in size. . . [/quote]

Agree with everything that bporter wrote except for the "superimposed scale" part. I would prefer a clear scale description in the text so that the aesthetics of the picture(s) are not compromised.

I agree with Dean. The photography community long ago agreed that published photos that are enhanced or altered with image-editing software should be identified as such. This pertains especially to composite photos, such as pasting a plane or bird against the full moon, etc., for dramatic effect.

In addition, it would be very nice, and educational, if APOD photo captions would include camera exposure data (i.e.. f/no, seconds, film or digital camera, etc.)

While I'm reaching for the moon here, I'll also wish for a superimposed scale on photos of size-ambiguous planetary landscapes. Too often one can't tell if a feature is meters or hundreds of meters in size.

Bill Porter

--------------------------------------
http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/ceps/etp/mars/marsimg/mars_lowell.jpg
http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/ceps/etp/mars/marsimg/EP0001.jpg
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http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap970204.html

Explanation: Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto, died on January 17th. Inspiring many during his long and exceptional career, he had been living in Las Cruces, New Mexico with his wife of 60 years, Patsy. Today would have been his 91st birthday. He is pictured above in 1995 in his backyard with a telescope he knew well - a 9 inch Newtonian reflector he built in 1927 with discarded farm machinery and car parts. Using this telescope under the dark night skies of Western Kansas, he made drawings of Mars and Jupiter and submitted them to Lowell Observatory in 1928. Hired to work at Lowell in 1929, Tombaugh embarked on a systematic photographic search for the long sought Planet X with a newly constructed 13 inch astrograph. In 1930 Tombaugh triumphed in his struggle to find the 9th planet, discovering faint and distant Pluto orbiting at the edge of our Solar System. Founding father of New Mexico State University's Astronomy Department, he retired as professor emeritus in 1973 but continued to tour as a lecturer and promoter until failing health prevented it. Always an active stargazer, he was asked by the Smithsonian if they could have the telescope he used to make his 1928 drawings. His response: "I told them I was still using it."

The image is really, then, a "photo illustration." It's actually quite important for the photographer, and APOD, to call it that, or at least a "composite" image. The viewer needs to know, and has the right to know.

OK, I admit to not caring for the image, :) but that's secondary, it's not my website, and APOD is fantastic. However, images and text are the same, and both need to be simply, and extremely, accurate.

ENOUGH OUT OF ME. I'll return to simply enjoying APOD.
Dean

[quote="danimator"]It looks like the photographers, "Dan & Cindy Duriscoe", have some explaining to do..[/quote]

I don't understand. What's to explain? Is there a rule against compositing a photo to create a pleasing image? I followed the link to the website in the credits and did not see any claims about science being done based on this image so, my guess is that it was done for aesthetic purposes.

I also carefully reread the APOD caption and did not see any conclusions or claims being made based on the image that would require it to be a single un-"photoshopped" exposure. The objects that the APOD mentions do actually appear in the photo regardless of whether they were all from the same exposure.

[quote="danimator"]It's a pretty bad photoshop job, obvious to all of us who looked at the high-res version.

From the DIGG comments too:

"It's a photoshop, and not an especially good one. Look at the mountain range line that meets the clouds, then see how it cuts off in a clean marquee line (with traces of the original clouds.. oy vey) once we get to the 'stars'. Look at the uniform opacity/gaussian blur of the cloud itself. [b]Even the cloud has been tailor-made for dramatic effect.[/b] >:(

This was a mountain on a cloudy day cut out into the dramatic shape we see, and composited onto a long-exposure starfield. It's a complete and utter fabrication."

So what's up?

Link: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0804/flagstaffsky_usno_big.jpg[/quote]
(Bolding mine)

My guess is that the whole point of the photo is "dramatic effect" so I would say the photographers/compositors accomplished their goal quite well. I found it to be a very dramatic and aesthetically pleasing image.

[quote="danimator"]"A Protected Night Sky" my butt.[/quote]
I think the "Protected Night Sky" description is referring to Flagstaff's lighting code and not the image itself.

Don

It looks like the photographers, "Dan & Cindy Duriscoe", have some explaining to do.

It's a pretty bad photoshop job, obvious to all of us who looked at the high-res version.

From the DIGG comments too:

"It's a photoshop, and not an especially good one. Look at the mountain range line that meets the clouds, then see how it cuts off in a clean marquee line (with traces of the original clouds.. oy vey) once we get to the 'stars'. Look at the uniform opacity/gaussian blur of the cloud itself. Even the cloud has been tailor-made for dramatic effect. >:(

This was a mountain on a cloudy day cut out into the dramatic shape we see, and composited onto a long-exposure starfield. It's a complete and utter fabrication."



So what's up?


Link: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0804/flagstaffsky_usno_big.jpg


"A Protected Night Sky" my butt.

If you look at the [url=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0804/flagstaffsky_usno_big.jpg]large image for April 16[/url], you'll see that the stars are smudges, not points of light. The picture is probably a single, long exposure. Digital cameras can "see" better than the human eye.

"Merging the earth and sky at their best," needs to be identified. This is easily done by saying it's a composite image. The text says the image was taken at 3AM. Which image? An observer standing in that spot on that date at 3AM would not see that scene. It's a pretty, and composite, image.

APOD is great. I don't want to offend, just precisely match images and text.
"Less real" is exactly what a composite image is. We wouldn't tell a newcomer to the eyepiece: "It looks like a cluster, but it's a galaxy."

Like everyone, I appreciate all efforts and images on APOD.
Dean Drumheller

Hi Amy,

It would make replies to your questions easier if you included the URL
in your post.

I'm not a photo expert so can't make any other contribution.

April 15 and April 16 are both probably composite photos. Most pictures that include sharp pictures of the starlit sky and terra firma are composites. That doesn't make them any less real. Probably the only "photoshopping" done was merging multiple exposures that show the sky and earth at their best.

[url]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080415.html[/url]
[url]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080416.html[/url]

Both are outstanding photographs. Would be good wallpaper for the computer.
Orin

[quote="Amy"]Does anyone else think that today's APOD looks photoshopped?[/quote]
I'm not sure but it may ba a composite to keep everything in focus.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080416.html
Orin

April 15 and April 16 are both probably composite photos. Most pictures that include sharp pictures of the starlit sky and terra firma are composites. That doesn't make them any less real. Probably the only "photoshopping" done was merging multiple exposures that show the sky and earth at their best.

[url]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080415.html[/url]
[url]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080416.html[/url]

Sorry. I was referring to the April 16h image "A Protected Night Sky Over Flagstaff," showing the Milky Way over a landscape. Thanks, Dean

Does anyone else think that today's APOD looks photoshopped?

[quote="geonuc"][quote="Dean Drumheller"]APOD is great to visit every day. Thank You.

Today's image should be identified as a composite image. That way it's accurately defined, and does not insinuate that the viewer can see this exact scene by simply looking up.

THANKS FOR APOD !
Dean Drumheller[/quote]
Which image - April 15 or April 16? The time stamp on your post makes this unclear to me.[/quote]
If everybody would put the APOD name and date on the subject line and post the link in the message body; everything would be a lot less confusing and there would be a lot less double and triple posts. :wink:
Orin