Hi @Brian FuldaI would invite you to look at it in the following way: Winning an artistic award comes with a given with a probability that is always less than 1, whatever is your image/movie/song/etc. If an image is really great, which the image at hand is absolutely, then the image is likely to win some award. I am sure that, should this image be submitted to multiple competitions, this image will win one or more; but no all. Against this background, I don't think that it makes sense to discuss Astrobin IOTD rules based on 1 single case. Should rules be changed, there will be some other great image that won't find there way to the 365 IOTD badges that are awareded each year and some more discussion as this one will arise. A discussion of rules is a general discussion on rules, not on a case. I invite you to submit this outstanding image to multiple instances and competition. It is likely to win one. I hope it will. Besides, be aware that committment measure in integration time triggers strong expectations leading to strong disappointment if a given jury does not reward this committment. Besides, there is a number of member of the community that are simply not fans of that level of redness all across the field. CS Patrice PS : I did not vote because I don't think it's a good idea for the street to put pressure on a volunteer jury whose work is, on the whole, very good.
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Brian Fulda:
If you're so tired of hearing about it, maybe something needs to be done about it instead of letting the terrible existing system continue to be beaten to death. I'd like to think @Timothy Martin is tired of hearing about it not because it is a terrible system (it isn't) but there is literally nothing in this discussion that has not already been debated and discussed before and at nauseum. I should know, having participated in several of them. I am not a reviewer, submitter, or judge, so hopefully I will not be accused of bias. Years ago, I did serve as a submitter and, for a small period of time, as a reviewer, and I left because of the huge time commitment involved. I think all the reviewers, submitters, and judges do their jobs because of love for the hobby and site, so it is disappointing to see accusations of bias and nepotism thrown around with no evidence. Given the quality of the current TPs, you could literally start a dozen complaint threads asking why image X or Y was not IOTD. What purpose is served by this?
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As of my writing this post, the poll has 78 total votes. 41 (52.56%) say the image is worthy of being the Image of the Day. 37 (47.44%) votes say it isn't. I think that puts the image into the proper perspective. It is a fantastic image. It's better than anything I've ever done or probably ever will produce. While the very first IOTD/IP Principle says the IOTD/TP is not a competition, it is competitive. Judges can only choose so many images in a certain period of time, and there are only so many judges. Given the 50/50 (or close enough) split of the poll, this image probably could have been awarded IOTD if it was submitted at a different time, but the judges didn't view it as better than the other images it shared its time in the queue with.
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HI,everyone
Again and again, the same discussion. I'm starting to believe that vanity, ego, and the desire to win an IOTD are more important than love and passion for the stars.
Sometimes at night, looking at my sky with just a few stars (B9), I remember these discussions and say, I'd trade all my nominations, top picks, and IOTDs for stars in my sky.
And as I always say, don't forget to look at the stars.
CS
Brian
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It's a great image. In my book it certainly merits a TP, and it could easily have been an IOTD.
Compared with other folks on astrobin, this person has a good TP/IOTD ratio. So I think they have done rather well in the IOTD game.
Amongst astrophotographers, the TP/IOTD ratio is not randomly distributed, so clearly the judges are looking for something. More likely probably something to rule out an image given the large number of excellent images which are nominated for TP or are assigned a TP. In the IOTD manifesto technical excellence is clearly stated as the priority, so I suspect many other excellent images; which might gain an IOTD if novelty, creativity or originality were the priority, fail at this last hurdle because of some technical failure. Either way, your friend has found the secret.
Do you think he could give me any tips? * (58 NFTPs, 24 TPs, 0 IoTDs).
CS Brian
*My feeble attempt at humor. |
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The process is working quite well, judged by people who've seen one and another. They know the targets, which one is hard to process, which one is easy. They know how to spot defects. They know which ones are easily avoidable, they understand the effort and skill level while aiming for diversity. Your idea however: Brian Fulda:
(or better yet, just let AB users make a popular vote!) Is absolutely terrible. Turning this into a public relation and popularity contest. Potentially allowing someone who has never seen a moon crater decide which image sits at the top will just turn this into facebook 2.0. Not only the image you linked will still not make it to IOTD, but now the IOTD will be a shaky video of an out of focus star because they will think the atmospheric turbulence is the star surface. Trust the process and move on.
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Hello friends. I'm the guy that took the image in question. I'm mostly going to stay out of this conversation, but I feel that it's important to say that I didn't ask Brian to post this. I sent him a text this morning, saying "No IOTD for my spaghetti nebula…but I got Top Pick!" Brian started this Astrobin thread on his own accord. Brian is a dear friend of mine, and he's part of a trio of us that text pretty much daily, bouncing ideas off of each other, talking general astrophotography stuff, and often times "real life" stuff. Brian is a tried and true, time-tested, good friend of mine. While I would love to have received an IOTD for this image (wouldn't anyone?)...I'm thrilled to have received a top pick. Getting any recognition at all feels really great, especially with such incredible "competition." I'm on Astrobin every day, multiple times a day, and over the past two weeks I continually thought "there's no way I'm getting an IOTD...some of these images rolling in are just incredible."My thoughts are that no competition like this is perfect. There are always concessions that have to be made. Of all the different "awards" out there, Astrobin has the most fair process. There are other similar competitions out there that really lack transparency, or even any attempt to explain how images are chosen. I will forever applaud @Salvatore for the work he has done for our community, and for the lengths to which he goes to make things fair and good.I'm guessing there are some judges that are reading this as well. Thank you, with great sincerity, for choosing my image to be a Top Pick. It's an honor to be placed alongside such amazing imagers and images. Jeff
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Thank you Jeff for the calm deescalation and kind words to the community. Now back to business. Brian Fulda:
In the past 365 days, only 208 of the IOTDs were unique users. That means ~43% of IOTDs are from users who have been awarded multiple IOTDs in the past year. Now I'm sure many of those are well deserved, but 43% is a lot. That's almost half. As someone who doesn't pay attention to these types of stats, I have to question the influence of nepotism among the judges at 43%. As you said in the FAQs, humans are involved, which means inherently the judging will be flawed. Just wanted to point out something I found funny: Jeff won back in November. He'd be a repeat winner, bumping that 43% up. (Yes obviously you think the award is deserved and I'm taking your words out of context) Could you share how you came to the 43% number? I was going to download the page and sort through the names in a script but figured I'd get to the point if you'd already done that.
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The original post was asking for feedback on the image. As with any judging involving photography there are personal preferences at the bottom of every reviewer and judges decisions. So my opinion when I saw them image (which I think breaks new ground with the object) was that the Ha background was presented with too much of an orange color. I would have preferred a magneta/red tone and that was the main reason I don't believe I promoted it. Simple as that. That said, I'm really glad it got a Top Pick. People need to see this image.
Kevin
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Thank you Jeff for the calm deescalation and kind words to the community.
Now back to business.
Brian Fulda:
In the past 365 days, only 208 of the IOTDs were unique users. That means ~43% of IOTDs are from users who have been awarded multiple IOTDs in the past year. Now I'm sure many of those are well deserved, but 43% is a lot. That's almost half. As someone who doesn't pay attention to these types of stats, I have to question the influence of nepotism among the judges at 43%. As you said in the FAQs, humans are involved, which means inherently the judging will be flawed.
Just wanted to point out something I found funny: Jeff won back in November. He'd be a repeat winner, bumping that 43% up.
(Yes obviously you think the award is deserved and I'm taking your words out of context)
Could you share how you came to the 43% number? I was going to download the page and sort through the names in a script but figured I'd get to the point if you'd already done that. I'm not sure on mobile, but on PC where it says IOTD on the main page, just to the right there's an "i" symbol, and a graph symbol. Click the graph and it gives you a handful of statistics. Like how many have won what award, how many images have won each award, subject type, and data source. One thing that makes it difficult for this particular image is how large the it is. Full Res it blows up so big that any flaw is amplified.
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I have to say this. It's my own personal opinion, and I don't have factual evidence to share or prove it!
Brian is not the only one who feels this way about the IOTD. Last year, I started to notice a pattern in random things (not by the numbers), but by visiting some profiles after seeing nominees and winners of international astronomy contests, as well as people usually associated with discoveries in the amateur astro community.
At the time, my goal was just to learn more about the authors’ work, and that’s when I started to spot a recurring pattern in the winning and top pick images of the IOTD. I can’t give a simple explanation for it. I’m not questioning anyone’s work, effort, or even the system itself, but I can say this: I’m good at spotting patterns, and this one caught my attention. I spoke with Salvatore about it back then, he gave me an explanation, and I let it go.
But yes, I came to the same conclusion, and Brian is not the only one thinking this way. Unlike Brian, though, I have no one to defend and no intention of aiming for a winning image spot. I'm just a random dude.
Personally, I preferred the old system, which felt “more honest” to me. But I have to agree with what Andre said above: opening the system for everyone to vote would definitely push things in the opposite direction and rig the current system. It's just like social media and influencers these days - the ones with more likes, views, and comments are seen as the best, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are.
And yes, that image is amazing! So far, it’s the best I’ve seen in that category, and it’s a shame it only made it to the Top Picks. That worries me too, because if an image like that only made Top Pick, I can’t even imagine what it would take to beat it.
Clear skies to everyone,
Cesar
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Hi all, As part of the IOTD judging team, I had the opportunity to review this image closely. First, congratulations to @Jeffrey Horne on your incredible dedication. Spending over 500 hours on a project is truly remarkable, and the result is certainly impressive! That said, while the time and effort invested are astonishingly admirable, it ultimately comes down to the final image presented. To my eye, the gaseous structures appear to have harder edges than expected, losing some of that soft, natural appearance. In my opinion, gases should look like, well, gas! There’s also some residual background noise, and I noted the aforementioned concerns around star shapes and the bold color palette - and yes, I concede that color palattes are however, subjective! It was a close call, but in the end, I chose not to award this image an IOTD. I can only speak for myself, the rest of the team may have different perspectives. Congratulations again on a fine image and a well-deserved TP. CS Andy
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Dark Matters Astrophotography:
What I really get baffled by is why the first two layers of voting are completely blind and the last one is not. That’s just crazy to me. For clarity on the process, sometimes, there are multiple images in the queue from the same imager or team. Knowing the identity behind the submissions helps us manage the timing of awards, ensuring they’re spaced out to avoid any appearance of favouritism. In some cases, it also allows us to revisit, discuss and possibly revise a decision if two IOTDs have been awarded to the same person (or occasionally the same subject) within a short period. Speaking for myself, I don’t consider who created the image when making a decision (unless it conflicts with the reasons above). I will only promote an image if I genuinely believe it deserves the accolade. We judges can only select from the images that are in the IOTD candidate queue (and Judges cannot see their own work if it’s in the queue). Occasionally, I come across outstanding images on AstroBin that, in my opinion, deserves further consideration, but I trust the system and work with what submitters and reviewers have preselected.
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Quinn Groessl:
I'm not sure on mobile, but on PC where it says IOTD on the main page, just to the right there's an "i" symbol, and a graph symbol. Click the graph and it gives you a handful of statistics. Like how many have won what award, how many images have won each award, subject type, and data source. Thanks, this is most of what I wanted. If I remember I may search through and find who is the most awarded, most common object to be awarded, interesting stuff like that. Or I might just beg Salvatore to do it form me  . Edit: # of awards can be found in the astrophotographer list, still not object awarded most. Not sure how I'd search for that right now but something to figure out eventually
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...
At the time, my goal was just to learn more about the authors’ work, and that’s when I started to spot a recurring pattern in the winning and top pick images of the IOTD. I can’t give a simple explanation for it. I’m not questioning anyone’s work, effort, or even the system itself, but I can say this: I’m good at spotting patterns, and this one caught my attention. I spoke with Salvatore about it back then, he gave me an explanation, and I let it go.
But yes, I came to the same conclusion, and Brian is not the only one thinking this way. Unlike Brian, though, I have no one to defend and no intention of aiming for a winning image spot. I'm just a random dude.
....
Cesar Hi Cesar, That's interesting, what would be that pattern ? Best, C.
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Just gonna sidestep the whole IotD discussion and focus on the image. Here is the only advice I can offer; Image resolution should be a very conscious choice for everyone. Bigger is not always better. It's a fantastic image that completely falls apart at full resolution. If say, it was uploaded where 20-40% was the maximum resolution, then it would indeed just be a fantastic image! Nothing was gained by uploading the full resolution (in terms of IotD judging) aside from exposing all the flaws.
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Hi all -
I do appreciate the judges sharing their insights into their thinking.
My worry is that this creates the unfortunate impression that images that make IOTD are uniformly flawless. Having participated in many of these threads, there are certainly examples of images that have made IOTD that have far more flaws than what has been pointed out in Jeff's image, and people have gotten quite animated about those images - much worse noise or distorted stars, poor color. In all those cases, the difficulty of the material or the overall presentation and quality of the images outweighed those flaws.
I really think it comes down to the fact that when you have several excellent images to choose from, minor flaws in the image take on greater significance. A different judge than Andy or Kevin that had space in their queue may well have made a different determination. I fully suspect given a slightly different set of images, Andy and Kevin themselves may have promoted this image. So I think there is a huge element of luck here.
Which brings me to the famed 43% "top guns". It took Jeff here two years to come up with this image. In that time period, someone at a B2/3 site, either at home or remote, can come up with well over a dozen images . Assuming same quality, guess who wins more IOTDs? It may be possible to overcome the advantages of clear, dark skies and aperture with luck on occasion, but in the end, the House always wins. This is physics.
For this reason, it is pointless to get too worked up about awards and really ask yourself what you are doing this to achieve. Hopefully, for most, it is still the joy of capturing something unbelievably distant and wonderful.
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Since the beginning of this thread, I've been wondering whether the opinion of a handful of jurors and a small golden trophy in the corner of the picture really outweigh the 353 likes and 52 bookmarks. In the end, you have one day of “fame” until someone else has the pleasure the next day….
Best regards,
Micha
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Andy 01:
Dark Matters Astrophotography:
What I really get baffled by is why the first two layers of voting are completely blind and the last one is not. That’s just crazy to me.
For clarity on the process, sometimes, there are multiple images in the queue from the same imager or team. Knowing the identity behind the submissions helps us manage the timing of awards, ensuring they’re spaced out to avoid any appearance of favouritism. In some cases, it also allows us to revisit, discuss and possibly revise a decision if two IOTDs have been awarded to the same person (or occasionally the same subject) within a short period.
Speaking for myself, I don’t consider who created the image when making a decision (unless it conflicts with the reasons above). I will only promote an image if I genuinely believe it deserves the accolade.
We judges can only select from the images that are in the IOTD candidate queue (and Judges cannot see their own work if it’s in the queue). Occasionally, I come across outstanding images on AstroBin that, in my opinion, deserves further consideration, but I trust the system and work with what submitters and reviewers have preselected. What you have described here could easily be done by the software and judges can judge blindly like the rest of the process without revealing information that can be used against the owner of the submission. That would be trivial to implement I would assume and would greatly improve the perception of fairness the process suffers from based on comments here and offline via colleagues.
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Dark Matters Astrophotography:
Andy 01:
Dark Matters Astrophotography:
What I really get baffled by is why the first two layers of voting are completely blind and the last one is not. That’s just crazy to me.
For clarity on the process, sometimes, there are multiple images in the queue from the same imager or team. Knowing the identity behind the submissions helps us manage the timing of awards, ensuring they’re spaced out to avoid any appearance of favouritism. In some cases, it also allows us to revisit, discuss and possibly revise a decision if two IOTDs have been awarded to the same person (or occasionally the same subject) within a short period.
Speaking for myself, I don’t consider who created the image when making a decision (unless it conflicts with the reasons above). I will only promote an image if I genuinely believe it deserves the accolade.
We judges can only select from the images that are in the IOTD candidate queue (and Judges cannot see their own work if it’s in the queue). Occasionally, I come across outstanding images on AstroBin that, in my opinion, deserves further consideration, but I trust the system and work with what submitters and reviewers have preselected.
What you have described here could easily be done by the software and judges can judge blindly like the rest of the process without revealing information that can be used against the owner of the submission. That would be trivial to implement I would assume and would greatly improve the perception of fairness the process suffers from based on comments here and offline via colleagues. Can anything be really anonymous, when many embed signatures and watermarks into their images?
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Ashraf AbuSara:
Dark Matters Astrophotography:
Andy 01:
Dark Matters Astrophotography:
What I really get baffled by is why the first two layers of voting are completely blind and the last one is not. That’s just crazy to me.
For clarity on the process, sometimes, there are multiple images in the queue from the same imager or team. Knowing the identity behind the submissions helps us manage the timing of awards, ensuring they’re spaced out to avoid any appearance of favouritism. In some cases, it also allows us to revisit, discuss and possibly revise a decision if two IOTDs have been awarded to the same person (or occasionally the same subject) within a short period.
Speaking for myself, I don’t consider who created the image when making a decision (unless it conflicts with the reasons above). I will only promote an image if I genuinely believe it deserves the accolade.
We judges can only select from the images that are in the IOTD candidate queue (and Judges cannot see their own work if it’s in the queue). Occasionally, I come across outstanding images on AstroBin that, in my opinion, deserves further consideration, but I trust the system and work with what submitters and reviewers have preselected.
What you have described here could easily be done by the software and judges can judge blindly like the rest of the process without revealing information that can be used against the owner of the submission. That would be trivial to implement I would assume and would greatly improve the perception of fairness the process suffers from based on comments here and offline via colleagues.
Can anything be really anonymous, when many embed signatures and watermarks into their images? That’s their decision to do. If they want to place those on their images that a conscious decision they have made.
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The problem with anonymization is it falls apart when people watermark images before upload.
Only fix is to force people to upload an un-watermarked version to submit. Let’s be real, IOTD/TP isn’t so important that people should have to export and upload two versions of an image just to participate. I’d rather people take time filling in acquisition details.
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Dark Matters Astrophotography:
Ashraf AbuSara:
Dark Matters Astrophotography:
Andy 01:
Dark Matters Astrophotography:
What I really get baffled by is why the first two layers of voting are completely blind and the last one is not. That’s just crazy to me.
For clarity on the process, sometimes, there are multiple images in the queue from the same imager or team. Knowing the identity behind the submissions helps us manage the timing of awards, ensuring they’re spaced out to avoid any appearance of favouritism. In some cases, it also allows us to revisit, discuss and possibly revise a decision if two IOTDs have been awarded to the same person (or occasionally the same subject) within a short period.
Speaking for myself, I don’t consider who created the image when making a decision (unless it conflicts with the reasons above). I will only promote an image if I genuinely believe it deserves the accolade.
We judges can only select from the images that are in the IOTD candidate queue (and Judges cannot see their own work if it’s in the queue). Occasionally, I come across outstanding images on AstroBin that, in my opinion, deserves further consideration, but I trust the system and work with what submitters and reviewers have preselected.
What you have described here could easily be done by the software and judges can judge blindly like the rest of the process without revealing information that can be used against the owner of the submission. That would be trivial to implement I would assume and would greatly improve the perception of fairness the process suffers from based on comments here and offline via colleagues.
Can anything be really anonymous, when many embed signatures and watermarks into their images?
That’s their decision to do. If they want to place those on their images that a conscious decision they have made. The point is judgement will never be fully blind to who acquired the images. Its not like including a signature necessarily means it is an advantage or a disadvantage, assuming any so called "bias" in judgement. Unless as Ethan had said, everyone is to upload an unwatermarked image.
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Hi all,
After a bit of reflection, this will be my last reply on the topic.
I made some harsh accusations about the judging process yesterday and have realized this is not fair to the folks who put a lot of hard work into the process. I apologize to them for that.
I still feel that the process is rather flawed, but on second thought I agree the popular vote idea is not an ideal solution either. Perhaps something in between (maybe 100+ reviewers / judges) would be better in the future. The current judging process is, in my opinion, limited to too few people. But I also understand there is no perfect judging system and we are all just doing our best.
As others have pointed out, awards shouldn't mean that much — it takes away from the beauty of enjoying the night sky. I agree with this 100% (and is why I rarely post on here).
I just mainly wanted my good friend Jeff to get the recognition he deserves for his image. It's phenomenal and deserves to be seen by more people. I feel that his image is being unfairly penalized by the pixel peepers. Had he uploaded it at a lower resolution, it likely wouldn't have met such scrutiny.
If you look at Hubble or JWST images at full resolution, they look awful; they're full of hot pixels, artifacts, etc. But that doesn't take away from the images ability to impact the public. Nobody is saying "Wow, that image of the Pillars of Creation is profound, but those hot pixels in the left pillar is really detracting from the image." Hear how ridiculous that sounds? That's essentially what has become the trend in our community — pixel peeping great images to death.
If we are allowing ourselves as a community to let pixel peeping dictate the popularity of an image, then we have lost the point of doing this hobby. That's all I have to say.
Clear skies to you all.
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Ashraf AbuSara:
Unless as Ethan had said, everyone is to upload an unwatermarked image. Even then, you would recognize an image from someone you knew. Unless, as Sal said, you were not permitted to publicly display your image for weeks until it worked its way through the process, which is not practical. And even then, I could see people saying that X or Y shared their image privately or on a different forum and hence should be disqualified. As @Ethan Chappel said, this is not worth the trouble to me and I suspect, to a lot of people. May be the answer is to replace the judges by AI.
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