I would like to know, how others think about the following question. What is your opinion, how do you judge it, when and how do you justify it, and where would you see the “red line”?
Astro Landscape Photography is a stunning activity, which i also enjoy a lot. Just like in Deep Sky Photography, taking an image is an exhaustive process, usually requiring a lot of time and effort. It is different though in where this time and effort is invested.
Part of the workflow is about blending foreground (landscape) and background (sky), since usually the sky is captured in tracked mode, while the landscape isn’t. And usually, there is some way to avoid artifacts from sky obstructions, which come into play at least if there is some more complex silhouette in the landscape. Taking tracked images before AND after stopping the tracker for capturing the stills often doesnt do the trick. So one could shift the sky a bit, so the artifacts are moved below the horizon. Or one could move to an unobstructed location for capturing the tracked subs.
Then during post processing one could find, the tracked images have been out of focus, or there is some other problem, so one could go back and add some more footage another day. Or - why come back at all, the sky is the same, at least within a certain distance. Taking them from a different location isnt doing any differencce. But how large is the acceptable distance? And from here, one could even argue, why not use data from the hard drive, which has been captured for a different project? Technically, this already is like using data from a personal database, which only has to be blended into the foreground!?
For me, there is a boundary somewhere in the last paragraph. Adding more tracked images in a different night is okay for me, but taking it from a different location already feels odd. And the database approach feels completely wrong. But i can not define a strict border, which is more than a tiny step, at which i could say “until here it is absolutely fine, but beyond it is a no-go”. So maybe, with the help of the community, it could become a bit more defined and better to judge for me.
Hoping for some interesting insights,
Clear Skies,
Horst
Ethics in Landscape Astro Photography
Thanks for this. Fwiw, I’d preface things by saying that I think the whole idea of “judging” astro-photographs (or any other form of art) is wrong. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder - if you like an image, you like it. If you don’t, you don’t. Who is anyone to judge the creative work of another?
Setting that aside, I’d go with the question: is the image something that could be seen by someone in real life? Or is it something completely impossible (like putting Eta Carina above the Matterhorn)? If it’s the latter, then that is not a photograph, it is a fantasy image - which may still be beautiful, and striking, and deliver significant impact. But it is no longer a photograph.
Whereas if its the former, then its not a problem because the image that is being conveyed is realistic - the combination of the foreground and background are something that could be seen and captured by someone in real life standing at that place at that time of year. So then to detract from that image because of the factors you describe is a bit like saying well a painting isn’t a legitimate painting b/c it didn’t use pigments that were made in the same year as each other?
Thanks for this. Fwiw, I’d preface things by saying that I think the whole idea of “judging” astro-photographs (or any other form of art) is wrong. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder - if you like an image, you like it. If you don’t, you don’t. Who is anyone to judge the creative work of another?
You got a point. However, i think for our passion there is some kind of intrinsic ethics, because of its strong connection to science, which at least in deep sky is at least as present as the artistic component. If you come to specificly this website, we have the IOTD/TP rewarding system, which requires some kind of judgement, based on certain defined criteria. In other communities, like e.g. in NLC or fireball communities, and to a lesser extent also in polar light forums, it is even expected to provide precise information with a posted photograph, like capture time, -location and -direction, to enable others to compare it to other images to estimate parallax, or to judge the development and movement of the subject.
HR_Maurer · Jun 27, 2026, 11:09 AM
However, i think for our passion there is some kind of intrinsic ethics, because of its strong connection to science, which at least in deep sky is at least as present as the artistic component.
Before I address the statement above regarding the common thought about astrophotography having a stong connection to science, I want to address the thread topic. I believe that astrophotography is an art, a sub-genre of all of photography. For most people who participate here and in other ways, often privately, this art is practiced as a means of personal exploration, in technical practice and to see (and for some) to learn more about what is out there in nature. In the technical part, this is no different than any other art. It exists even in finger painting. We certainly get all hyped about the gear, for sure, but it really all boils down to the same fact. As far as what the person who is doing this art feels counts as success, it is and has always been up to that one person. If that person never shows his images to anyone else, then there is little pressure to do something that is technically, or artistically ethical. In the other extreme, if one is trying to impress an audience, or clientele and is attempting to commercialize what it is they produce, then there will be a whole bunch of pressures and constraints. Even in the latter case, I think the ethics issue is still open. And that is because there will always be sub-populations of the audience that will care, and others who won’t. The hypothetical given in the extreme was that just one nice image of the Milky Way could be sufficient to generate an almost endless number of landscape asto images, thus leaving the artist to just travel around and get the best lanscape images to which you just plop the two together and viola! Maybe, take one or a few deep sky images for each season of the year and that can extend your images to all 4 seasons! Even as a person, who would never show my images to another, I would not go there, because what would the fun be doing that!? I might argue that someone into this for the money might be more tempted to do this sort of thing, only because making such images in the most cost-effective way and that would mean the artist could get closer to making this a sustainable endeavor. As an astrophotographer, who understands a bit of how these images are put together (and I have not yet gone the landscape direction), what catches my eye more than the super bright, unrealistic deep sky overlays, are ones that can also portrait some aspect of control in the process and bring me to a place I might actually believe. Yes, I do still appreciate some enhancements, and yes I can never tell what that photographer really saw at that site and at that time. That is probably why the landscape images that attract my eye more than any are ones including a “connected” set of features between the landscape and the deep sky part of the image. For instance, one that include interesting clouds, complex horizons, distant lit features and light domes that reach up to the clouds above and clearly show that at least some of the features are real and believable.
Now to the science issue raised. Mentioned many times here. Often, though more in the past, causing truly upset responses here by some who are told they are not doing science when doing astrophotography. It seems that the evolution of science and the reporting of science by news, and by popular culture, e.g. science fiction novels, books, etc. have put foward the idea that only that which involves space is real science, or the ultimate science, to the masses. As a global culture, we seem to have fallen down that hole fully after WWII and have never stopped. Everything else, chemistry, biology, etc. seems to have been recategorized as technology. So for most of the non-scientific community, if some astrophotographers show a picture they took to a novice and that novice gets excited, the novice often will think that the person taking the photo has done science. And not a few astrophotographers will encourage and adopt such a sense. But think of this objectively! Astrophotographers are recording and presenting the images of objects found in nature. And as such, are never testing any hypotheses. Think a little deeper and you begin to realize that every photographer is recording something that is found in nature. (Here I won’t say that 100%, without exception because I don’t want to spend the time trying to figure out the exceptions.) A person taking a picture underwater of a coral reef is not doing marine biology (even though a marine scientist might take pictures underwater to support their science). Yet few marine photographers confuse this fact. A person taking a landscape photo, say the mountains, are not studying the the geology of plate tectonics. Ansell Adams never considered himself a geologist. A portait photographer, taking the photo of a person, is not doing so because they are interested in human biochemistry, anatomy, dermatology,… and none have ever considered themselves as even amateur biologists. I think that it is time that astrophotographers dispense with the false sense, expectation, or conceit that this art is somehow science or associated with science. I is no different that any other photography genre, with the exception that there is some specialized equipment involved. But that goes for many of the other genres. And yes, other genres want equipment that can be far more expensive and involved from what most here are willing to pay for. Having spent a number of years doing this, the biggest difference between astrophotography and almost all the other genres is a huge disadvantage, and that is our subjects are 99% unmoving, unchanging in shape perspective, etc. There are many more photos of mountains, different mountains in circulation than that off deep sky nebulae. (this maybe a gross assumption on my part!), But inarguably, most of those mountains have been imaged from many more perspectives than any nebula has ever been. On and on. To me, this has a great impact on what this thread is discussing. Yet after much too many words, I have no definitive answer to the topic raised. And maybe that is because there never was a definitive answer.