How about a pre-Xmas Post-Processing competition ?

[glowingturnip]

Whilst idly daydreaming this am, I was wondering what people would think of a little pre-xmas post-processing competition for a bit of a laugh ?

I'm thinking that we could all go from the same source file (post calibration/alignment/stacking raw 16 bit tiff), no external data allowed, and the best interpretation wins.

Could have 2 or 3 main categories - 1) a debayered one-shot-colour, maybe from a DSLR, 2) LRGB individual monochrome channels and maybe 3) LRGB with narrowband data too.  We'd need some kind soul(s) to provide some decent (but not excellent) source data to use, and then everyone works off the same files.  We'd need a subject with high dynamic range, and plenty of colour to bring out, so maybe old favourites M31 or M42

Maybe sub-categories for a) freeware postprocessing software only, general photographic software (ie Photoshop and equivalents) and c) astrophotography-specific software (ie Pixinsight and equivalents) - that way everyone could have a go.

Possibly run for the whole of Nov, to give plenty of time for everybody, and results announced just before xmas.  Perhaps a panel of kindly mods could act as a judging panel, and maybe we could prevail upon our venerable board sponsor to offer some small goodies as prizes, and perhaps present the results on their website, should they so wish.

Legally speaking I guess the data provider and competition entrants would have to waive copyright to the work, but would retain accreditation.  That way we couild all show off our efforts.

What do people think - good idea ?  lame idea ?

Cheers,

[uhb1966]

Cool idea , i'm in! :-)

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Could be fun and interesting. I have very little in the way of processing skills, my workflow is to stretch, colour balance, boost saturation and that's about it - I don't understand how to use layers and masks at the moment. Would be instructional to see how much better other people could do with the same data set.

[Alien 13]

Great idea it would be nice to see how freeware compares and if the benifits of dedicated software shines or not.

Alan

[glowingturnip]

meant to add, we should ask entrants to give an outline of workflows used, so we can all learn a bit

[Coco]

Im in... sounds like fun.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Meant to add - if I get some better widefield data for November I'd be happy to share some, I can easily put some subs on Dropbox or something. Not sure how suitable my data would be, but I can make some available if wanted.

[tingting44]

nice idea, i like it

[Christopher Davenport]

Good idea, 

If I may make a suggestion of a challenge we ran last year in planet processing, is to keep it simple and focused.

It started with a image and an attempt to process the image, with the workflow and software shown.

This then spiralled into various people giving it a go.

To this affect if I could suggest that you (or somebody) post a stacked image for processing with following rules:

a.) Non astro tools (Gimp / ps / image analyser etc)

b.) Open to all tools (Ie. Pixinsight, noise reduction etc.)

This way, it keeps it open to everybody and beginners can learn from the workflow.

Edit -

I have 5 hours of Andromeda data from a DSLR, that is a right headache to process.

35 x 300 Cappa Sig