Image presentation - north up?

[7170]

I’m interested to know if many people rotate their final images so North is up and East is on the left? Or do you not change the orientation, or just change to improve aesthetics.

I do this for double star images where I overlay measurement markings. But I note some people on their websites seem to present all images North up, East left (or they have on scope rotators that are perfect each time 😀).
 

Just interested to know people’s thoughts are and what is common practice in the world of imaging.

[ollypenrice]

In my formative imaging years I was much influenced by Dennis Isaacs who growled when images weren't North-up so I tremulously got into that habit! 🤣  I will deviate if I think the aesthetics really demand it but I do have the camera orthogonal with RA and Dec unless I really can't avoid rotating. Random angles, therefore, I naturally avoid. (They make it so hard to add data at a later stage if they're not orthogonal.) I did recently rotate an M45 image by 180° simply because I wanted it to look less familiar.

Olly

[tomato]

I think there is a element of familiarity and accepted convention when presenting images, and you have take into account the subject being presented. For example, a face on spiral galaxy can be shown at any angle without raising too much comment, but how often do you see the Horsehead presented “upside down”?
 

Personally, I would put framing requirements above a North up convention, a lot of objects require a diagonal orientation on the sensor in order to fit them in.

[The Lazy Astronomer]

My personal opinion is there is no such thing as up. Unless something looked "wrong" (and l think an upside down horsehead is a good example of that), I'd say lets not get too bogged down with orientation.