Why do we

[Albir phil]

Not sure if this belongs here, A few weeks ago a old friend paid me a visit,he looked at some of my images and said, very nice but why do you spend so much time outside in the cold when you can see them in many magazines.Well he is and always as been a keen angular.I replied why do you stand in water to catch fish when you can buy it at the supper market, he smiled and said each to his own 😁

[Swoop1]

For me it is the satisfaction of getting it right and producing my own image.

I try not to think of the more frequent frustration of getting it wrong....

[neil phillips]

I Think its in our blood. Many of us would have built huge scopes and did what John Herschel was doing. If born rich in the late 1700s. Just fascination and curiosity

 

[Albir phil]

Someone once said(I think it was Eddieson or Bell) I have not had 1000 failure's,, but 1000 lessons of how not to do it🤔

[maw lod qan]

Hey, he has a good point.

I've always said a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work!

I can't comment as far as imaging.

But maybe I look up into the sky, just to try and know whats out there.

[Elp]

Think it's just the satisfaction of doing it yourself. Even if you could procure easier, people will still want to do it their way. Why take photos, why paint, why do anything other than as a means to save money from procuring it. Life would be more boring without the procrastination.

[jjohnson3803]

I'm strictly visual except for the occasional wide angle iPhone shot, but I've gone back and forth about getting into more serious imaging.  I mean, really, why spend thousands on equipment that may or may nor get used at the whim of the (usually cruddy) weather when I can download free images taken with everything from a 50mm to Hubble?  And then spend hours on my laptop trying to process the things.

But then I consider sunsets, seashores, wildlife shots, and so on.  I could download fantastic pictures of all of those too, but there is something compelling about capturing my own images, whether they're judged to be "good" or "mediocre". Maybe b/c it's a creative act in a sense?

EAA is probably going to become a no-brainer here given the ever increasing light pollution, but the new and relatively inexpensive / affordable Seestar and Dwarflabs rigs have me pondering going with one of those.  Of course some would say that's not "real" observing.  <sigh> 

Outcome is TBD.  😁

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by jjohnson3803

[Elp]

Visual tends to be more memorable, imaging however reveals things in plain sight which is difficult to see otherwise. I always state visual is seen at the time, imaging over time. I can just about make out m13 with averted vision, 10s with a camera and it's there clear as day.

[tomato]

Yes, but where do the nice pictures in the magazines and on the inter web these days come from? Professional scopes take fewer pretty pictures these days, and as amazing as the HST and JWST images are, they aren’t exactly wide FOV instruments. 
Look how many APODs come from amateurs, albeit usually those with access to high end kit in great locations, but we all have to start somewhere.

[Franklin]

54 minutes ago, jjohnson3803 said:

EAA is probably going to become a no-brainer here given the ever increasing light pollution

Ditto.

[Cjg]

On 15/06/2023 at 23:23, Albir phil said:

Not sure if this belongs here, A few weeks ago a old friend paid me a visit,he looked at some of my images and said, very nice but why do you spend so much time outside in the cold when you can see them in many magazines.Well he is and always as been a keen angular.I replied why do you stand in water to catch fish when you can buy it at the supper market, he smiled and said each to his own 😁

The challenge of overcoming weather, mosquitoes, photoshop, and in planning a photo that I am happy with, and happy to print and put on my walls at home.

There will always be someone with more talent, better weather, better kit etc, but for me, it's the satisfaction in seeing something that I had the idea for and managed to capture and produce.

Great post btw!

Chris

[Albir phil]

Here here👏

[JOC]

Until I joined SGL, I had no idea that the fabulous night sky shots that I too had seen in magazines and calendars could be taken (hypothetically) in my own back yard with the right equipment.   I had always assumed that they were shots taken with satellites or huge stellar telescope arrays.  I am still amazed at what essentially very keen amateurs can achieve and how professional they appear.

[saac]

Why fall in love  - you can just read about it 🙃

Jim 

[glafnazur]

I started imaging mainly because of the ever increasing light pollution where I live. I don't drive and I am my wife's main carer so I don't have many opportunities to get to a dark sky. I take images (when I get the chance) so I can see objects that I have no chance of seeing visually at my location. I am not bothered about producing an APOD, I just get the satisfaction of knowing that I produced the image from my light polluted  back garden.

[Albir phil]

That is what imaging is all about for me, I have taken it and that alone is its own reward🌠😃

[jjohnson3803]

On 19/06/2023 at 16:43, JOC said:

Until I joined SGL, I had no idea that the fabulous night sky shots that I too had seen in magazines and calendars could be taken (hypothetically) in my own back yard with the right equipment.   I had always assumed that they were shots taken with satellites or huge stellar telescope arrays.  I am still amazed at what essentially very keen amateurs can achieve and how professional they appear.

Many (most?) amateur photos today blow away what professional astronomers could do back when I was getting my undergraduate degree and we used astronomical emulsions on glass plates.  103aO was the bomb, baby!  😉

[mikeDnight]

William Herschel summed it up nicely when he wrote - "...to take nothing on trust, but to see with my own eyes all that other men had seen before."  His humility makes me smile as he became one of the greatest observers of all time. But even if he hadn't achieved greatness, his goal would still have been met, and his passion for his hobby filled his life with purpose. Similarly, wether we are astro imagers or visual observers, it's about the personal adventure and sense of achievement and purpose it gives each of us. We are very privilaged when you think about it, as how many people who you pass in the street ever see the things you see visually or via images made from your own back garden? 

[Ratlet]

For imaging I largely do it so that my mum will give me a like on Facebook.  A fringe benefit is that someone else will see the image and like it or comment and just have their day lifted.  Don't forget we are here because we are all more or less equally weird.  Joe Average comments on a ratty image of Andromeda and they've had their world in a tiny way shifted.  "That guy I went to school with took a picture of another galaxy.". I spent an hour on WhatsApp last month video calling my sister and panning around the moon with my phone at the eyepiece.  She's no interest in space or the moon but she was absolutely delighted.

Visual though is entirely selfish.  I could stand here for a week with poets and not quite put into words what it was like when I saw M92 through my 10" dob and immediately had to look at 3 other globular clusters.  Or when @Louis D suggested a cheap filter combination that turned Jupiter and Mars from a washed out 'meh' to something that teleported me to being 8 and looking at a Voyager picture in Quest. I saw polar ice caps on Mars, on another fricking planet!

I say it's entirely selfish but the thing is, I know I can't describe anywhere near adequately what I've seen, but I know that you lot reading this know exactly what I mean and will do a little half smile and remember your own Jupiter on a cold November night when the seeing was perfect, or M33 when you realised that wasn't a thumb print on the eyepiece but was another galaxy.  Don't even get me started on sketching...

It weird that I've never felt more connected to other people but I'm  standing in the darkness on my own.

[VNA]

Hello, why the turkey crossed the road???

 

 

(because the chicken would not do it!!!!!

 

 

On 17/06/2023 at 04:36, neil phillips said:

I Think its in our blood. Many of us would have built huge scopes and did what John Herschel was doing. If born rich in the late 1700s. Just fascination and curiosity

 

Sir William  Herschel did more than build scopes, he composed beautiful music, although he did not built "big" orchestra but formed big mirrors!

 

 

[neil phillips]

1 hour ago, VNA said:

Hello, why the turkey crossed the road???

 

 

(because the chicken would not do it!!!!!

 

 

Sir William  Herschel did more than build scopes, he composed beautiful music, although he did not built "big" orchestra but formed big mirrors!

 

 

And that's often another connection a lot of amateur astronomers also are also musical.