Article Submissions

If you have an article or review you would like published on Cloudy Nights, please submit it to cloudynights.editor@gmail.com.

We ask all submissions to agree to some simple guidelines:

• Tell us about your general geographic location, years experience, # of scopes owned and biases you may have.
• No editorial changes will be made to an author's contribution without their consent. We may at times ask authors to clarify a section but will not interfere with the actual content.
• Authors are asked to be fair-handed, a process that we understand can be painful for a proud owner. Please tell the readership both the good points and compromises that were made. Don't pull any punches; tell it like it is.
• Comparative reviews are especially welcome. Showing how one scope/accessory stacks up against another gives the content a sense of context.
• We request that no "pre-production" instruments or accessories be submitted for review.
• Make sure you include any images associated with your review / article.
• For a good guide on how to write a review, see How To Write a Product Review By: David Knisely

Multiple Reviews

Cloudy Nights is particularly interested in posting multiple perspectives on the same telescope or accessory. Each of us has our own biases and experiences, which mold our opinions of different instruments. To be 100% objective is truly impossible and perhaps is rather uninteresting to read. The key to deciding which author is "right" is really a decision about which author shares your unique philosophy of viewing and optics. In other word, which author do you identify with the most, or keyed in on certain variables that you find important. To this end we would like other owners of already reviewed scopes to step forward and share their experiences with us.

Additionally, multiple reviews show trends or certain variables all the authors mention or agreed upon. This lends validity to the variables in question and ultimately helps the reader reach his/her own conclusion. Articles where the authors diverge in their results should not be viewed with any additional skepticism then any other article posted. Such articles merely reflect the honesty of the authors (they stated what they saw, not what others expected) and should serve as a reminder that all articles are inherently subjective. Here the readers should key in on how the authors reached their separate conclusions and decide which author's perspective they identify with most.