[APML] Muddying the water a bit (Was: A little M31 & M45)

["Jim Vineyard" <deepskyphotos@hotmail.com>]

Hi All,

  I've had a couple of observations on my mind for quite some time now 
(years actually).  To me it seems there are at least two genres (types) of 
astrophotographers:

a.)  Those who wish to portray astro-objects as real "Photographs" of the 
sky, taken from the ground, through the atmosphere.

b.)  And those who wish to portray the object "as if it matches the 
magnification".  As though seen from a viewpoint in space equal to the 
magnification or even lack thereof (The kind I like to do especially in long 
focal length).  This would obviously be a photographic illusion.
  However one can easily argue all types of photographs/images are in fact 
illusion, just zoom-in, for but one.  Not to mention extraneous theoretical 
and real considerations of that old bugger true color, nebula dispersion as 
one moves towards them, and the anthropomorphic aristocentrism we place on 
plain old electromagnetic radiation to name only a few.

  But since we're really creating this stuff for only human consumption (so 
far as I know), we want it to be realistic, however we portray the humanly 
visible slice of the electromagnetic spectrum (but then we all cheat on that 
too in astrophotography).
  All that said, at my point along the road, I still prefer and use Mike 
Cook's original "grain reduction technique" with it's masking of brighter 
areas in Picture Window and then make the (actually smooth black to 3 
degrees Kelvin) background as grainless as I can get it, for realism, you 
understand.  (Although Juan's software definitely still resides on my hard 
drive since it is a fine piece of software and has its uses depending on the 
photo, each of which still seems unique to me during processing attempts.)
  So if we're churning out these fine illusions of reality, as if seen by 
some better human eye, then to me they should be absolutely grainless in 
appearance (up to the needed point of preserving any available real detail) 
since human vision does not perceive the world as grainy.
  Now imagine there really are not only a and b above (classic duality), but 
really a spectrum, and in this case, of astrophotographers.


Jim Vineyard




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Hammonds" <shammonds@creatorsview.com>
To: "'Wei-Hao Wang'" <whwang@gmail.com>; "'Discussion of Film 
Astrophotography'" <astro-photo@seds.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 7:08 PM
Subject: RE: [APML] A little M31 & M45


> Wei-Hao, Stuart, Chris S, Jose,
> Thank you all for the nice comments. I am happy with the M31, it is 
> without
> question my best effort on this object. Although the M45 is probably also 
> my
> best effort on this object, I'm still not satisfied. I appreciate the all 
> of
> the comments on smoothing.
>
> For the most part I think less is better. There is definitely a line that
> can be crossed for to much and this is probably a matter of taste.  In my
> M45, it seems close so I'll give it another try. Thanks again.
>
> Scott
>
> Scott Hammonds
> www.creatorsview.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wei-Hao Wang [mailto:whwang@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 6:26 PM
> To: Discussion of Film Astrophotography
> Subject: Re: [APML] A little M31 & M45
>
> Scott, those are beautiful images.  I especially like the colors.
>
> As for the smoothing issue, I don't think Scott's images are too smooth or
> artificial at all.  The look very nice.  However, in general, I do prefer
> images with a little noise/grain left.
>
> In an image, usually the faintest areas are full of noise/grain and the 
> very
> bright pixels are real signals.  However, the transition between noise and
> low level signal is continuous.  There is always a brightness range where
> noise and low level signal coexist and cannot exactly tell what is noise.
> When we look at such an area, our eyes are annoyed by the noise but can
> still recognize some pattern which may well be real signal.  I like to
> protect such an area from being smoothed.
> Otherwise I lose those signals and the image looks too smooth.
>
> My $0.02.
>
> Cheers,
> Wei-Hao
>
> --
> ________________________________________________________________
> Wei-Hao Wang  :)
>
> Institute for Astronomy at University of Hawaii
>
> Address:
> 2680 Woodlawn Drive         Personal Website:
> Honolulu, HI 96822             http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~wang
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