{"id":202,"date":"2020-10-27T20:26:50","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T20:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/?p=202"},"modified":"2020-10-27T20:27:17","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T20:27:17","slug":"astronomical-league-foundations-of-imaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/texasstarcave.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/27\/astronomical-league-foundations-of-imaging\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomical League: Foundations of Imaging"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The internet is replete with resources for astronomers and astrophotographers, and the local astronomy club is indispensable, especially for beginners.\u00a0 That said, however dedicated you are to your craft, there may be times when you feel like you have run out of interesting things to observe or image.\u00a0 That is where the Astronomical League<\/a> shines.\u00a0 Beyond the wonderful monthly magazine, The Reflector<\/em>, the AL has over 70 programs for total beginner to seasoned experts, that cover every area of interest to astronomy enthusiasts.\u00a0 If you are reading this, it is likely you have an interest in astrophotography.\u00a0 The AL has quite a few programs that, while they are called “observing” programs, they are also suited for imaging.\u00a0 For the less experienced imager, there is now a new program for 2020 called Foundations of Imaging<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 I was delighted to help with this project and hope that through it, many will be able to also enjoy the satisfaction of imaging the wonders of the universe.<\/p>\n

The activities encompass solar system objects, and deep sky objects.\u00a0 The solar system activities will result in a total of 28 images of the sun, moon, and planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, with options for eclipses, wide field, and occultations.\u00a0 The deep space objects activities result in 25 images of clusters, nebulae, and galaxies, with options for double stars, variables, and novae.\u00a0 The activities have required objects, and objects you choose at your discretion.<\/p>\n

Experienced imagers will be relieved to know that past work is accepted, provided it meets the submission criteria.\u00a0 As this is a foundational program, images are not expected to be ready to hang in galleries, but there are guideline that are designed to help imagers strive to achieve a minimum standard.\u00a0 This sentence shows the spirit of the Imaging Criteria Requirements:<\/p>\n

The subject must be in-focus, clearly portrayed, without distracting artifacts (excessive noise, star bloat, highlights clipping, excessive vignetting, obvious gradients, collimation errors, hot pixels, etc.), and appear natural, that is, not too overprocessed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See the Program Requirements<\/a> for all the rules.\u00a0 The authors of the program are astronomy imagers themselves and realize that not everyone, especially at the foundational level, have access to all the equipment needed to image solar system objects and DSO.\u00a0 For that reason, you are not required to own the equipment used in your images.\u00a0 However, you must be the primary agent in the planning, setup, capture, and editing of each image.<\/p>\n

One of the requirements that you may not be used to seeing is that, “stars should never be green.”\u00a0 This is mostly a problem when capturing narrowband nebulosity with multiband filters.\u00a0 With the advent of highly sensitive one shot color (OSC) cameras, filter manufactures have designed multi-narrow bandpass filters.\u00a0 Usually these filters pass Hydrogen-alpha, Oxygen III, and maybe a couple other spectral lines.\u00a0 Oxygen III and Hydrogen-beta lie halfway between blue and green.\u00a0 This works great for capturing the hydrogen and oxygen nebulosity, but it causes the stars to appear cyan (cyan is the color of mixing blue and green light).\u00a0 So, when editing narrowband images, be extra careful to not let any green (or cyan) into your stars.<\/p>\n

In addition to the rules and requirements, there are three useful appendices to assist imagers in their exploration:<\/p>\n