Is it time to seperate BACKYARD gathered Images from ALL HOSTED sites

No. Astronomy is astronomy. It takes work to operate remotely as well. There’s no remote site magic faeries keeping my systems running each night.

Astronomy is not Astronomy there are those who work at it in every detail and those who pay others to do it for them

Hosting sites like those in Chile ETC are on ANOTHER LEVEL compared to the Backyard Person trying to take pics …they are Professional GRADE  so why not separate the Groups so everyone has a fair shake and getting a IOTD and Top Pic !

If only there was a "dislike" button, I could push it now.

If the main reason you post your images is to win, your missing the whole point. Head on over to Facebook and garner some "Likes." Sure there's a little disadvantage to backyard imagers but I love the fantastic images posted by the Chilean scopes. Those southern targets are awesome 


Mike

Hi, Aaron!

I am both backyard and remote. Increases the chance of a clear night. I’m a not-quite-a-newby, having started this hobby in 2020.

This past December, I purchased and assembled remote gear, worked out the tweaks, calibrated it, and shipped it to Texas. The staff followed my notes and pictures to replicate the setup. Their expertise is no greater than my own in regard to my unique setup.

the backyard rig is set up every clear night, using the garage for safety when not in use. No pier. 

both rigs are consumer-level setups. In fact, some the remote gear is less sophisticated, picked instead for unattended reliability. 

I use the exact same software to command both home and remote scopes, so all software adjustments are my own. I live under bortle 5 skies. Texas skies might be as good as yours.

I get pretty nice images from both locations while employing nearly identical shooting strategies.

The remote rig occasionally needs remedial tweaking. It sometimes takes a few days, even for things I can fix in minutes on the backyard gear. So mere annoyances at home are significant inconveniences at the remote site. 

With all this being said. I’m not sure of your concern. I do know I’m envious of your scope location. It’s quite superior to my home skies in the Midwest!

The field will never be level. How are you going to handicap my home B8 skies against your B1?

I work every bit as hard as you do in my own backyard and nothing I do is ever going to make my skies as good as yours. I don't have a dome so I have to haul my stuff out every night too. Do I get a handicap for that? At the end of the day, are you sitting in your dome controlling your stuff or are you sitting inside controlling it via a PC? If it's the PC route, I have to say it doesn't sound any different than me controlling my own remote scope. I bet we use the same or similar software. 

Yes, I use a remote site but I also hand delivered and installed my equipment on site. I also take a trip every 6 - 12 months to perform maintenance on my stuff too. I have to select targets each night. I have to make exposure decisions. I have to make framing decisions. There isn't anything about taking the images I don't have to do myself. There isn't anything about maintaining my system I cannot do myself (and usually do). Yes, I have some remote help if things go wrong and I appreciate it. But if things really go sideways, it is on me to make it happen. If it is routine, it is on me to make it happen. 

But my real point is this; a friend of mine always reminds me astrophotography is not a competition. Making it into one takes all the fun out of it. I tend to agree with him.

It may be easy for some to feel left out or discouraged by IOTDs or top picks, but thats not why this community is for.

This community is for all skies all equipments class and all passion and dedication level. I am against creating more subdivisions or categories or whatnots.. let keep it simple for everyone to just post their love for astronomy and astrophotography.

And did you mention bortle 1-2 skies, top 5 site and dome.. just go for more integration interesting target composition, I am sure your image will catch judges eyes at some point… till then keep imagining and clear skies.

Hi All
I've been on AB for near 8 years now, so I thought I might share my experience. I won't debate if this is about awards or fun, or just a wonderful social interaction with like minded folks–we are all different, and get our kicks in our own ways. But I did want to look at my experience with awards, how much difference does a hosted system in some sky paradise, where the skies are not cloudy all day. Over 8 years I have imaged from a Bortle 8 light dome in the heart of a region of over 10 million souls, in a location that more often than not is cloudy and has the jet stream running right overhead. And, during those cloudy periods I have paid for the best data from the best sites. Here then is my modest tally, with no IOTD yet. 

                           Nominations       Top Picks     
Me in B8                2                           3
Paid/Hosted          6                          3

Now only 1/4 or so of my images were hosted, but on the other hand, so many of my early images were on a learning curve. When I look at my early work I cringe equally at my own images and those I processed from paid/hosted data. Note, I still cringe sometimes at what I post, when I look back at it.

My other point is that I have not found hosted vs my own data generally easier or harder to process, that for me mostly depends on the target, not on the data source. And, it is just as easy to mess up great data and poor data, I have proved that to my own disatisfaction many times.

My conclusions are, I do not want to be relegated by my own B8 images to some lesser award, there is nothing better than to be recognized to be up there with the Big Guys, with my humble setup (a C925) in B8 conditions. And I'm not going to say I'm doing anything that anyone can't do, my setup is KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), and I'm still on a huge learning curve in this amazing hobby. 

My advice for non-optimal conditions is to focus on targets that suit your conditions, and really work at them. And note, not all targets are super dim or require the most amazing resolution, we tend to overestimate the power of the equipment, rather than how we use it. You might note that data from hosted sites has often been pruned down to the very best, and has long integration times. With my conditions, if I focus on getting as much data as possible on each target, so I can get there too–and I believe I can.

I'm not the only one, there are others who have much more amazing photos than mine with modest equipment and conditions. 

CS all!
Rick

Aaron Lisco:
I love being able to share my pictures that i have taken here on Astrobin. It is a fantastic platform for doing so. My only compliant i have is this and i wonder if i am being to sensitive or if it is time for a change to the site to make the playing filed a bit more fair.

Over the past several years more and more people are using Hosting sites to capture data. whether it is an Amateur hosting facility located in Chile, Italy or in Arizona people are paying to download and process DATA, There are Numerous Sites in the USA alone where you can send your Entire rig and they will set it up colimate, focus  the optics install software and do test runs to make sure its all as good as it can get...all done by people with a lot of experience in optics and Astronomy software.

I have Zero issue with that i think if you can't get dark skies where you are and want to get better DATA then go for it !!

What i would  like to see change is the way Astrobin evaluates Images for the IOFD  I think that a backyard Imager going up against a Professional grad set up like those in Chile and others as well as Local hosting sites where you send your gear and do not do the setip or maintain the equipment  is an Unfair comparison.

While i am at Haleakala Maui Hawaii a top 5 site in the world for imaging and I am inside a dome out of the wind with access to some of the best Bortle 1-2 skies in the world I still have to do ALL the setup myself. I have to open the dome Home the mount colimate the scope check the Polar alignment Focus the Lens, Adjust for tilt and Capture the DATA on my computer using all the Equipment i set up and maintain.   

I think there should be separate categorizes simply Backyard meaning you do it all.... and Hosting meaning anything that is not 100% in your control in all detail .

So i guess i would like to know is  if others feel this way ?

Mahalo

Aaron,  I do all the setup for my two rigs that are in remote sites. 

Kevin

Aaron,
I purchased and configured my own gear.  I paid to ship it to Chile.  I flew down there and set up both of my systems (over multiple trips).  Virtually no one has touched my gear except me and I run it every clear night.  And when it breaks, I own the problem.  I set up the data transfer system and I process all of my own data.  Am I somehow "cheating"?  Frankly, what I am doing is WAY more difficult than operating a telescope in my backyard, but the benefit is in the number of clear nights and the darkness of the sky.

Perhaps you are unaware of how the data breaks down for participation on AB.  Here's the distribution of data sources on AB (as of today):



The category of "Own Remote Observatory" represents an outsized percentage of IOTD awards, but that's probably because it also represents a category of imagers who are more strongly committed to the hobby and who have more long term experience with both equipment and processing.  Virtually everyone starts out int their backyard and it's only those who get more seriously "hooked" on imaging that commit to the trouble and expense of operating a remote telescope.  There is NOTHING easy about operating a remote system so it takes experience and a real commitment to make that leap.  Backyard imagers may have more handicaps with regard to sky quality but they are pulling nearly half of the TP nominations and slightly under a third of the IOTD awards.  That's actually pretty respectable.


John

Its too complex to separate without doing a MASSIVE amount of butchery to how the site works.

Purchased data sets from professional astrophotographers where you simply download the calibrated, stacked files and process it are entirely different to having your own rig in a remote observatory, or operating a professional level rig in a remote observatory. Likewise, having an AMAZING setup in a bortle 3 or 4 backyard is FAR superior to someone using a doublet APO and a DSLR in bortle 7, or even a small apo and a low end OSC CMOS camera in a remote observatory..

I image from a B4/B5 backyard with a serious, but in the scheme of things, basic setup… 120mm APO, high quality harmonic mount, mono APS-C sensor etc - I set up and tear down every night, but I don't think that this slows me down all that much… No, I will never achieve what a 60cm CDK in B1 will achieve, but that isn't my goal… 

I've landed a Top Pick for an RGB image made in my back yard in under 3 hours of data… I've got a TP or TPN on almost 26% of the images I've posted - which I think given the percieved 'handicap' that backyard imagers with modest equipment, is pretty amazing… 

You need to remember too - someone like Wolfgang Promper only has the number of awarded images that he has, as a result of DECADES worth of experience… I guarantee you his first images were taken in a back yard, with a basic newtonian on a small GEM… Given his experience, I'd not be surprised if he could out do 90% of my results given my data, and I could not achieve his results given his data. There is far more to it than the gear, and unless your gear is PROPERLY potato level gear, I will guarantee you, what is standing in your way is going to be your own processing and acquisition skills, not the gear or the sky conditions…