Jump to content

SkySurveyBanner.jpg.21855908fce40597655603b6c9af720d.jpg

Award winning photograph of Andromeda


Jiggy 67

Recommended Posts

9 hours ago, westmarch said:

 

Who is to say what has the greater intrinsic value?  A photograph or a painting?

False dichotomy. This is bad photography and bad art (as Rembrandt said just a moment ago. 😁)

Olly

Edited by ollypenrice
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Such a passionate and intense thread.

For some comments, I simply can't even figure out if sarcasm is in question.

What strikes me the most is the level of legalism in many of the comments that is very different than most people views of what is allowed as astrophotographers interpretation of the image.

We demand good / pin point stars, technically good images, however when discussing other technical aspects of the image - like color - we allow ourselves to adjust color balance or saturation at will. Let's boost those blue tones as otherwise image looks too yellow / red (regardless if that is true color of the target) - because most people expect to see that kind of thing.

Let's kill off those greens in SHO image despite the fact that Ha signal is mapped to green channel and Ha is often most abundant and strongest signal of the three - simply because it looks nice and people are used to it.

Not to mention that people often employ processing techniques that they have no clue about what's been done to image / data. Yet we frown upon effect that is not only deliberate and understood but also technically demanding and very precisely executed.

How many of astrophotographers could calculate needed tilt to produce wanted depth of field simulation like one discussed here, given system parameters?

Interesting point very well made. Folks may have noticed that the vast majority of the imaging I do is LRGB of galaxy targets, one of the reasons being that I do not enjoy the huge degree of apparent flexibility there is in assigning colour to the NB targets. Take a look at the IKI M16 entries, they are all different and arguably all equally valid. With galaxies however, there is a lot more consensus on how the images should look, and I enjoy responding to that feedback, it somehow gives me a more clear goal to aim for when processing.
 

I will always feel more comfortable with the unambiguous mechanical aspects of imaging such as achieving proper focus and tracking, than I ever will be with the processing side.
 

One (and maybe the only) positive aspect of chemical film AP was I pretty much had a fixed procedure for processing, and I could only do it once.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, tomato said:

Interesting point very well made. Folks may have noticed that the vast majority of the imaging I do is LRGB of galaxy targets, one of the reasons being that I do not enjoy the huge degree of apparent flexibility there is in assigning colour to the NB targets. Take a look at the IKI M16 entries, they are all different and arguably all equally valid. With galaxies however, there is a lot more consensus on how the images should look, and I enjoy responding to that feedback, it somehow gives me a more clear goal to aim for when processing.
 

I will always feel more comfortable with the unambiguous mechanical aspects of imaging such as achieving proper focus and tracking, than I ever will be with the processing side.
 

One (and maybe the only) positive aspect of chemical film AP was I pretty much had a fixed procedure for processing, and I could only do it once.

I don't think your point is about galaxies versus other targets: isn't more about natural colour imaging versus NB colour mapping?

Olly

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with all the sentiments about the winning picture not being art or even astronomy. 

In fact I think it's horrible fakery.

In the words of Father Ted: 'Down with this sort of thing!'

  • Like 2
  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I don't think your point is about galaxies versus other targets: isn't more about natural colour imaging versus NB colour mapping?

Olly

Yes that’s a fair point. You can of course do NB imaging of galaxies, but that is usually for a quite specific purpose, you don’t have a free rein with how you would assign the data.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I even dare to challenge the Annie Maunders prize that is awarded.

The rules state that the contender should have processed the image from raw data:

119011426_10158557555029720_8225906698296659253_o.thumb.jpg.7c8c81bc2ca8a0d6b8710a2e13cdb1b9.jpg

The image is just downloadable here:  https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1242a/

I doubt if the artist of this photographed artwork did process the images herself. If you look at the size of the image and resolution I'm almost sure it was just downloaded and made into an artwork.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

No, the point is that it won a competition calling itself, 'Astrophotographer of the Year.' Nobody wants to deny this person the right to experiment in whatever way they like and produce whatver image they like. The butt of the harsh criticism here is really the judging.

Olly

I get that, but I don't think the author would be happy about the japery being bandied about on this thread. Its not something I would have expected to see on SGL. If you visit his website he even lists this photo under his experiments tab. His solar eclipse images are incredible. He's clearly passionate about the subject and I don't think its fair to imply that his effort was lazy or amateur.

Anyway, that competition should be taken with a pinch of salt. Its akin to the so called Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After all, a Hall of Fame with no Thin Lizzy is no Hall of Fame at all!

Ps. I'm not aiming my comment at any individual in particular but the theme of the thread appears to be pointing in that general direction.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

I get that, but I don't think the author would be happy about the japery being bandied about on this thread. Its not something I would have expected to see on SGL. If you visit his website he even lists this photo under his experiments tab. His solar eclipse images are incredible. He's clearly passionate about the subject and I don't think its fair to imply that his effort was lazy or amateur.

Anyway, that competition should be taken with a pinch of salt. Its akin to the so called Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After all, a Hall of Fame with no Thin Lizzy is no Hall of Fame at all!

Ps. I'm not aiming my comment at any individual in particular but the theme of the thread appears to be pointing in that general direction.

I agree. I think we should encourage anyone that has a passion, appreciate any unique idea and not bring them down.  And from what I'm seeing, in those astronomy picture of the year contests (2018, 2019 and 2020), the theme is more about creativity and new ideas every year.

I personally consider that AP contests should not be all about expensive equipment, but rather creativity, inventiveness, inovation etc etc, so that anyone (including amateurs and professionals) has an equal chance. 

Edited by Astrid
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Could you be more elaborate on why exactly is this bad photography?

Sure. Firstly, as a photograph of Andromeda, it is poor. I think we can probably agree on that but you might (quite reasonably) say, 'It's not trying to be a normal photo of Andromeda. It's trying to give an impression of Andromeda's distance behind the foreground stars.' So my second point would be that it fails, utterly, to do this. The distortions of the out of focus stars contribute nothing to the image's 'story,' they are just artifacts of the cheap trick used to create it. The distortions lie in two horizontal bands across top and bottom but not at either side midway up. This has nothing to do with the 'story' either. It's an artifact of the cheap trick... etc. (The distortions should be spherical in order to tell the story properly.) The sharp focus of the distant object and blur of the close gives precisely the opposite impression of distance. (Distant objects are less sharp than near ones.) In other words the distortions are pulling the mind in one direction and the focus in the opposite direction. 

Both the idea and the execution are crude and visible. In good art the artistry is 'invisible' in the sense that the viewer responds to what the technique is there to introduce rather than see the technique itself staring at them. We should first be moved and only later wonder about how it was done.

Olly

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

The sharp focus of the distant object and blur of the close gives precisely the opposite impression of distance. (Distant objects are less sharp than near ones.) In other words the distortions are pulling the mind in one direction and the focus in the opposite direction. 

Not always. No trickery with this, just f2.8, showing blurred Christmas lights in the foreground. I can’t imagine anyone would see the moon as a nearer object in this image. 
 

 

 

DF96FFA0-DABA-4391-9BA5-7FE8A559B046.png

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Firstly, as a photograph of Andromeda, it is poor.

At a expense of this sounding like arguing for argument's sake, I need to ask a few more questions and point a few things out to you.

First, again, you did not answer why is this poor image of Andromeda in your opinion? What is lacking? Color rendition? Depth of signal? Too much noise? Blown core?

Btw, here is higher resolution version (I'm certified pixel peeper and always appreciate higher res image):

https://hdrastrophotography.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/andro_website-1.png

47 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I think we can probably agree on that but you might (quite reasonably) say, 'It's not trying to be a normal photo of Andromeda. It's trying to give an impression of Andromeda's distance behind the foreground stars.' So my second point would be that it fails, utterly, to do this. The distortions of the out of focus stars contribute nothing to the image's 'story,' they are just artifacts of the cheap trick used to create it. The distortions lie in two horizontal bands across top and bottom but not at either side midway up. This has nothing to do with the 'story' either. It's an artifact of the cheap trick... etc. (The distortions should be spherical in order to tell the story properly.) The sharp focus of the distant object and blur of the close gives precisely the opposite impression of distance. (Distant objects are less sharp than near ones.) In other words the distortions are pulling the mind in one direction and the focus in the opposite direction. 

Here I must disagree with you. I don't believe this image want's wants to represent Andromeda being behind foreground stars and as such can't fail at that. What I believe this image is trying to represent is "Macro" shot of Andromeda.

Now, just for a moment, let's try to see if this "cheap trick" succeeds in doing that - let's take an example of macro photography and observe effects that happen:

image.png.5e53ff146fb5bb06c0d4d7b7f265fc44.png

This is very nice example of depth of field in close object. Depth of field is shallow, and only marks for 2 and 3 inches are in focus. 1 inch mark that is closer is out of focus and so are marks 4, 5 and 6. If you pay attention to wood texture on the table - it behaves similarly - there is central line in the image that is in focus but once you start moving up or down - things go out of focus due to perspective and depth of field.

If artist intended to represent such effect - I would say that they succeeded in doing that, what do you think?

As far as I can tell, intention of the image was not to show 3d effect as much as trying to portray Andromeda as something small, laying on the "desk of stars", in front of us - very close so we could in effect reach for it. Another pointer that tells me that I'm thinking along the right lines is choice of subject. M31 is such a "mundane" object in AP - almost as much as M42 - everyone and their uncle is going to shoot it as one of their first targets. What could possibly be interesting with M31 that it deserves to be in the image?

Well, I have couple of ideas why it might have been chosen, and one is important for what I said above - angle of M31 with respect to us - it is oriented in the way that matches above "laying on the desk in front of us" / having proper perspective. Other possible reasons include - abundance of stars needed for depth of field effect and suitability to be imaged with small refractor - a scope that will have proper bokeh representing depth of field - like in regular macro photography.

47 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Both the idea and the execution are crude and visible. In good art the artistry is 'invisible' in the sense that the viewer responds to what the technique is there to introduce rather than see the technique itself staring at them. We should first be moved and only later wonder about how it was done.

I'm not sure I could even begin to argue what is good art unless we start by defining what art is. After that we can move on to qualify how important "invisibility" is to quality of artistic expression.

Edited by vlaiv
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, Scooot said:

Not always. No trickery with this, just f2.8, showing blurred Christmas lights in the foreground. I can’t imagine anyone would see the moon as a nearer object in this image. 
 

 

 

DF96FFA0-DABA-4391-9BA5-7FE8A559B046.png

I find this image really quite hard to look at and positively unpleasant. Maybe it's just me but the inversion of sharpness foreground-background really makes me recoil and feel queezy.

45 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

At a expense of this sounding like arguing for argument's sake, I need to ask a few more questions and point a few things out to you.

First, again, you did not answer why is this poor image of Andromeda in your opinion? What is lacking? Color rendition? Depth of signal? Too much noise? Blown core?

Btw, here is higher resolution version (I'm certified pixel peeper and always appreciate higher res image):

https://hdrastrophotography.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/andro_website-1.png

Here I must disagree with you. I don't believe this image want's wants to represent Andromeda being behind foreground stars and as such can't fail at that. What I believe this image is trying to represent is "Macro" shot of Andromeda.

Now, just for a moment, let's try to see if this "cheap trick" succeeds in doing that - let's take an example of macro photography and observe effects that happen:

image.png.5e53ff146fb5bb06c0d4d7b7f265fc44.png

This is very nice example of depth of field in close object. Depth of field is shallow, and only marks for 2 and 3 inches are in focus. 1 inch mark that is closer is out of focus and so are marks 4, 5 and 6. If you pay attention to wood texture on the table - it behaves similarly - there is central line in the image that is in focus but once you start moving up or down - things go out of focus due to perspective and depth of field.

If artist intended to represent such effect - I would say that they succeeded in doing that, what do you think?

As far as I can tell, intention of the image was not to show 3d effect as much as trying to portray Andromeda as something small, laying on the "desk of stars", in front of us - very close so we could in effect reach for it. Another pointer that tells me that I'm thinking along the right lines is choice of subject. M31 is such a "mundane" object in AP - almost as much as M42 - everyone and their uncle is going to shoot it as one of their first targets. What could possibly be interesting with M31 that it deserves to be in the image?

Well, I have couple of ideas why it might have been chosen, and one is important for what I said above - angle of M31 with respect to us - it is oriented in the way that matches above "laying on the desk in front of us" / having proper perspective. Other possible reasons include - abundance of stars needed for depth of field effect and suitability to be imaged with small refractor - a scope that will have proper bokeh representing depth of field - like in regular macro photography.

I'm not sure I could even begin to argue what is good art unless we start by defining what art is. After that we can move on to qualify how important "invisibility" is to quality of artistic expression.

As a former English teacher I'm quite happy to argue for arguing's sake! I used to get paid for it... 🤣

OK, as an M31 it's very dull, partly out of focus, has little resolution, an unremarkable core and it doesn't go very deep. Without the tilt, would we be talking about it? So it's meant to have a 'macro' look? Why? What's the point? And the image replicates the galaxy's plane relative to us? Really? Lost on me.

A wider point: Art and literary criticism cannot replicate scientific reasoning and is not the same kind of activity. However, it is rigorous in its own way because it must make reference to the work itself. So I have some specific questions making close reference to the picture.

- What is achieved by having a full width horizontal band in focus right across the image?

- What is the significance of the deviation from round seen in some but not all of the stars? What does the particular orientation of these elongations contribute to the image?

Olly

PS I feel particularly strongly about this because the art world was hijacked years ago by charlatans churning out easy gimmicks which were there to be talked about, not looked at. (See Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word.) I dislike the way this competition, in which Tom and I were once runners up, is trying to pull the same kind of hijack on AP.

 

Edited by ollypenrice
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.