Telescope Reviews: Newbie Corner - I need some help with my pictures!

Hi Folks!

Some of the feedback we have been getting lately has told us that there are some of you out there who want help but may feel a little "put off" by what some of your fellow beginners with a bit more experience are able to do.

We would very much like to apply some focused attention to those of you who would like some commentary or assistance with your images, so I've posted this message to solicit your pictures and create a sort of "Q&A" or "FAQ" style set of threads that should help you up the learning curve - or figure out exactly what you'll need to do in order to give astrophotography a try.

With that said, we would surely have a very large mess before long if we just posted to a thread as we would in the usual way - and my goal here is to not only answer your questions directly, but also to create a resource for others so that they can also quickly find answers to their questions. So - we need to create a few very simple procedures for how this is going to work.

Here they are:

1: Please post a thread with the title "Newbie Corner - (your user name) - (the subject of your image) - for example: "Newbie Corner - Charlie Hein - Crater Clavius"
2: I will create a link in this "sticky" thread to the thread with your image so that we never ever lose track of it.
3: I (or another moderator or admin) will "lock" the thread once we feel that the question has been answered correctly and completely. We may also elect to edit the thread in order to make the answers more readable or more accurate, so that it will be of maximum benefit to others.
4: I (or another moderator or admin) may elect to add a "general" thread that does a great job of helping a user a particular imaging problem that would be of great help to other "newbie" imagers.
5: Images posted here must conform to the standard Cloudy Nights requirements for posting images. Specifically, your image must not be more than 800 pixels in width, and also must not be moe than 100,000 bytes in file size. I understand that as a "newbie" imager you may not even understand what this really means, or how to make certain that your images are in compliance. Image editing is a skill that "newbies" must eventually learn. To that end, I will intercept any images that do not conform to the rules and edit them to bring them into compliance, and I will contact you in order to find out how we can help you to be able to post "legal" images - we want you to contribute!

That's all I'll need to keep things organized! I'm really hoping that you will take part in this, and that it really helps to not only get you some help with your images, but also to make the whole process of learining how to take astrophotos a lot less intimidating!