Flickr group

foe posted a reply: Sketching is an interesting idea. There was an exhibition dedicated to astronomical sketches for the International Year of Astronomy: www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/blog/?p=2555 And what about Flickr's 'long photos' (60-second video)... do you think there's a place for that?

Nick Howes posted a reply: Correct, this is not a fake image, it's commonly used in solar imaging to show scale for newcompers in particular. Photoshop is used by everyone in post processing for deep sky photography (or something like photoshop anyway), even the Hubble team use it. False colour, again you have to be VERY careful how you define this, as the Eagle Nebula image "aka,....the Pillars of Creation", probably the most famous ever taken of the night sky, is false colour, using the now ubiquitous "Hubble Pallette" It is down to the common sense of the judges (the eta carina shot which made the final 20 was in false colour!), to decide what is right and wrong. My take on this would be to exclude 1: Obviously faked image composites (e.g. compositing stonehenge in front of a H-Alpha Sun) 2: Use of NASA/ESA data to enter the competition (or indeed data from any professional observatory...unless it's yours!) Some other considerations for next year maybe could be Categories for images for inclusion in the final shortist. Perhaps taking the aperture and equipment into consideration and limiting the number of "professional class" imaging setups (e.g. the 20" RCOS people in Namibia!) entires to a certain number and balancing against the smaller instruments. Both are valid and as waqs proved this year, even simple equipment shots can win and did win, but next year, I would imagine, given the press coverage, the entry bar will be higher, and there are some staggering setups in the amateur domain. Once the shortlist is done, then it's obviously down to the judges to decide on merit/against the equipment used. Sketching is also becoming very popular again. Would it be possible to open up a category for scanned sketches, and make the compeitition "Astronomy Image of the Year" Both Sky at night Magazine and Astronomy Now in the UK cover this noble art.. Just some thoughts