Telescope Reviews: Winners of the Astrophotography Contest

Hi all,

Our judge has announced the winners of our Astrophotography Contest. The winners are;

1st place: Brian Anderson Ultimate Guide to to Astrophotography with a C8
2nd Place: Pierre Vandevenne Beginners Guide to Digital Astrophotography
3rd Place: So King Yan Oldfield Astrophotography with a Webcam

Judge,

Our judge Brian Sledz is an experienced astrophotographer with over 8 years experience. Cloudy Nights asked him to judge the winners based upon any criteria he thought appropriate. Here are his comments from the judging;

Overall comments and method to my madness. I wanted the article to talk about digital, film and afocal for lunar and DSO astrophotography. In my mind, anytime the author didn't touch on those points I dropped them a notch. I pretended I knew nothing about astrphotography, (which my be true ;-]) and wanted to try pictures film or digital of DSOs and lunar or planetary.

So King Yan -Only webcam how to. Easy to follow, good pointers especially for city dwellers. I got the feeling a user would get some good results following his advice. Nice illustrations. Nothing about film.

Pierre- Good comparison table of what each type of camera is good or bad at doing. Good sample pictures and how tos. I like thay he showed how a raw image looks and then had processing tips. Tough decision.

Alan-Good tips, great illustrations. Lacked the DSO and film parts.

Eric-Good tips in the procedure. But no information about digital or film DSO astrophotography.

Rick-Good start, IMO article ended abruptly. After the list of items to buy, the article seemed to say ok just go out and take some shots. I think Rick has much more information than that to share. ;-]

Brian-Actually the articel that all others were judged by. This was first place hands down, it covered the different methods and how to advance to each method. Great pictures and illustrations and how tos. I enjoyed this one.

Best wishes and clear skies,
Brian Sledz